...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Copernical Team

Copernical Team

Friday, 14 December 2012 08:49

Starsem

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Starsem is a European-Russian company that was created in 1996 to commercialise the Soyuz launch services on the international market. It is Starsem is headquartered in Évry, France (near Paris).

Starsem is dedicated to providing commercial launch services with the reliable and proven Soyuz family of launch vehicles.  The European-Russian organization brings together all key players involved in the production and operation of Soyuz and is responsible for international sales of the world's most versatile launch vehicle.

Starsem offers the Soyuz for a broad range of mission needs, including satellite telecommunications systems, scientific spacecraft, and Earth observation / meteorological platforms.

Starsem provides a turnkey service, from manufacture of the launch vehicle to mission preparations at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and successful in-orbit delivery of payloads.

As of Nov. 2012, Starsem has performed the following launches :  Mars Express, Venus Express, Golbalstar communication satellites,  METOP the European satellite for meteorology, etc.  On 21 Oct. 2011, the first launch of the Soyuz rocket was made from the Kourou Space Centre, in Gyuanna.

Thursday, 13 December 2012 19:11

Orbspace

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Orbspace is a research company in the field of aeronautic and space transportation. It was founded in 2006.

The company's main competences are in aerospace engineering such as launch vehicle system design, rocket propulsion, numerical fluid mechanics and multi-disciplinary design optimization. Other competences include space law, aerospace medicine and project management. 

Orbspace offers these services as consulting and as partner in research projects. Our current research efforts are focused on the following topics:

  • Cost efficient ceramic combustion chambers and heat exchangers
  • Laser ignition for rocket engines
  • Vehicle system engineering and optimization
  • Safety of flight
  • Human space flight
  • Space law and certification
Thursday, 13 December 2012 19:02

ASTOS

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ASTOS is a Trajectory optimization and simulation tool for launch and re-entry missions, orbit transfers, design optimization and for re-entry safety assessments.

It solves Aerospace problems with a data driven interface and automatic initial guesses. Since 1989, the European Space Agency has developed, and improved this trajectory optimization environment to compute optimal trajectories for a variety of complex multi-phase Optimal control problems. ASTOS is being extensively used at ESA and aerospace industry community to calculate optimal launch and entry trajectories and was one of the tools used by ESA to assess the risk due to the ATV 'Jules Verne' re-entry. ASTOS is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac OS platforms.

It is maintained and commercialized by ASTOS Solutions Gmbh for the European Space Agency.

Thursday, 13 December 2012 18:44

Astos Solutions Gmbh

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ASTOS solution was founded and developed to comercialise the software product ASTOS (Trajectory optimization and simulation tool for launch and re-entry missions), intended for the space industry.

ASTOS Solutions has now (in 2012) extended its activities into aeronautics, automtive, robotics, and biomedical.

In the space area the company proposes solutions for space applications like feasibility studies, mission planning & analysis, reference trajectories, performance calculations, vehicle design, safety & risk assessment, verification and validation.

Thursday, 13 December 2012 18:33

X-37 robot spaceplane

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The Boeing X-37 (also known as the X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle) is an American reusable unmanned spacecraft.

It is seen either as a minishuttle or as a robot spaceplane.

 

It is boosted into space by a rocket, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the United States Air Force for orbital spaceflight missions intended to demonstrate reusable space technologies. It is a 120%-scaled derivative of the earlier Boeing X-40.

The X-37 began as a NASA project in 1999, before being transferred to the U.S. Department of Defense in 2004. It conducted its first flight as a drop test on 7 April 2006, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The spaceplane's first orbital mission, USA-212, was launched on 22 April 2010 using an Atlas V rocket. Its successful return to Earth on 3 December 2010 was the first test of the vehicle's heat shield and hypersonic aerodynamic handling. A second X-37 was launched on 5 March 2011, with the mission designation USA-226; it returned to Earth on 16 June 2012. A third X-37 mission launched successfully on 11 December 2012.

Thursday, 13 December 2012 18:24

FAST20 XX

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FAST 20XX (Future high-Altitude high-Speed Transport 20XX) is a European Space Agency (ESA) program to develop the necessary technologies for a hypersonic suborbital spaceplane. Funding for the program was established under the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme.

The FAST 20XX program is intended to provide a technological foundation for the industrial introduction of advanced hypersonic suborbital spaceplanes in the medium to longer term. No detailed vehicle design is planned under the program in its current form, with work instead focusing on mastering the technologies required for the development of such designs. Once the needed technologies are identified, researchers plan to develop the dedicated analytical, numerical and experimental tools needed to investigate them. The project will also look at the legal and regulatory issues related to suborbital flight in consultation with government and international authorities.

Two concepts will be focused on under the program:

  • the ALPHA, is based on SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2003. A key aspect of the design is the need for a carrier plane to launch the suborbital vessel.

  • The SpaceLiner is a concept of the DLR (German Aerospace Center). The SpaceLiner is an all–rocket-propelled vehicle intended to achieve a step change in ultra-fast long-haul passenger and freight transport, with the intended ability to transport 50 passengers from Australia to Europe in 90 minutes.

 

Thursday, 13 December 2012 17:58

SpaceLiner

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The SpaceLiner is a hypersonic suborbital spaceplane concept initiated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in 2005 and supported by the EU under the European Space Agency's (ESA) FAST 20XX program since December 2009.

The SpaceLiner is designed to be a reusable vehicle consisting of two stages: the booster and the space-plane itself. Both stages are propelled by LOx/LH2 rocket engines. The SpaceLiner lift-off is vertical (much like the Space Shuttle), powered by the combined thrust of the booster and the space-plane rocket engines. After the booster separation and engine cut-off, the space-plane behaves like a glider, skipping along the high layers of the atmosphere and ostensibly allowing for ultra-fast point-to-point travel. The SpaceLiner is designed to transport 50 passengers from Australia to Europe in 90 minutes or 100 passengers from Europe to California in 60 minutes.

Thursday, 13 December 2012 17:44

Spacelink_NGT

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SpacelinkNGT is next generation technology TTC and TM/TC equipment.

This product line is a standardised range of complementary products, which fulfil the promise of true multi-purpose and multi-phase system deployments. From simulation to operation. From bit to gigabit.

Company : SSBV

Thursday, 13 December 2012 17:33

Proba (satellite family)

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PROBA (Project for On-Board Autonomy) is a family of small Earth observation satellites, part of the ESA's MicroSat program.

Proba-1 was launched by ISRO in 2001. It is a technology demonstrator turned operational Earth observation mission - ESA's smallest, less than a cubic metre in volume. Proba-1's main instrument is the Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS), acquiring 13 square km scenes at 17 m spatial resolution in 18 user-selected visible and near-infrared wavelengths. This agile satellite can also deliver up to five different viewing angles. Nearly 20,000 environmental science images have been acquired. This small boxlike system (40×60×80 cm; 95 kg), with solar panel collectors on its surface, has remarkable image-making qualities. It hosts two Earth Observation instruments (dubbed CHRIS and HRC). It is a hyperspectral system (200 narrow bands) that image at 30 m, plus three in the visible that have 15 m resolution.

Proba-2, the second satellite in the Proba-series, has been launched on November 2, 2009, together with the SMOS mission. Proba 2 is a 0.6 × 0.6 × 0.8 meter, box-shaped structure weighing 130 kg with two deployable solar panels. It has a total of four instruments; two complementary solar observation instruments dubbed SWAP and LYRA, and two plasma measurement instruments dubbed TPMU and DSLP.

Further planned satellites in the Proba series are the formation flight Proba-3 and Proba-V (Proba Vegetation). They are on-going developments without defined launch dates.

Thursday, 13 December 2012 11:27

Aerospace Innovation GmbH

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Aerospace Innovation GmbH develops special high-technology solutions and applications for the space agencies DLR and ESA.

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