As the number of satellites in orbit continues to rise, ensuring mission safety and regulatory compliance has become a critical part of space operations. This case study explores how Neuraspace supports a new constellation operator in achieving full compliance with ESA’s Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines, from pre-launch planning to end-of-life deorbiting, while optimising mission performance and operational safety.
Challenge
Launching and operating a multi-satellite constellation while ensuring full compliance with ESA's Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines and proactively managing pre- and operational risks. As a responsible new entrant that aims not only for mission success but also for exemplary space safety practices from day one, the operator needs support to:
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Ensure launch and deployment safety: minimizing risks during the critical initial phases.
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Achieve regulatory compliance: specifically, meet ESA's stringent Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines.
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Maintain long-term operational safety: proactively manage collision risks throughout the constellation's lifespan.
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Plan for responsible end-of-life: ensure satellites could be deorbited safely.
Neuraspace Solution
Neuraspace can provide end-to-end mission planning support integrated with advanced space safety analytics:
1. Pre-launch trackability analysis to ensure safe initial and routine operations by allowing the global tracking community to track all spacecraft with high precision and ensuring that the data used for conjunction assessments would be of high quality, with well-characterized uncertainties.
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- Simulating observability and cataloguing performance: Analysing how well the satellites could be detected, surveyed and tracked by various sensor types, including evaluating hypothetical performance potential with own sensor assets (OWL network) and established third-party sensor networks (e.g., SSN, EU SST, and other partner providers).
- Ephemerides accuracy estimation: Simulating orbit determination processes to estimate the achievable accuracy of the satellite ephemerides post-launch, based on the chosen tracking network and satellite characteristics.
- Covariance realism: Performing analysis to estimate the realistic accuracy of the associated covariances (uncertainty predictions). This ensures that future collision risk assessments would be based on reliable uncertainty data, preventing both underestimation and overestimation of risk.
2. Comprehensive mission safety & operations analysis
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- Safeguard your space asset and optimize mission planning with our dual-component risk assessment service. We compute the accumulated lifetime probability of collision, providing a statistical picture of the passive risk your satellite faces from the background resident space object population, including both trackable and untrackable objects. Secondly, we deliver a statistical forecast of the expected number of collision avoidance manoeuvres required throughout the mission lifetime to optimize fuel budget, personnel, and operational downtime.
3. Collision Avoidance CONOPS Validation
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- Get support devising and validating robust collision avoidance strategies, informing the overall concept of operations
4. Launch window and safe deployment optimisation
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- Using pre-launch conjunction assessment, Neuraspace analyses multiple launch windows and deployment sequences. This involved simulating the ascent trajectory and initial orbital injection against the catalogued space object population to identify low-risk deployment opportunities.
5. Operational collision risk management, responsive Conjuntion Screening, CAM recommendations and much more
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- Once operational, Neuraspace provides a whole suite of services for effective and save operations. This includes conjunction screening, high-fidelity risk evaluation for critical conjunctions, orbit refinement through dedicated tracking requests, and maneouvre suggestions for orbit maintenance and collision avoidance. Neuraspace's platform recommends optimal, fuel-efficient manoeuvres, considering operational constraints and future risk, and allows for subsequent evaluation of collision risks.
6. Other:
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- Fragmentation analysis component: We analyse on-orbit break-up scenarios (e.g., due to battery malfunction or micrometeoroid impact) to assess the resulting debris cloud and its long-term impact, informing design choices and mitigation strategies.
- End-of-Life (EOL) planning: Validate post-mission disposal, ensuring satellites could reliably deorbit within guidelines through a combination of passive decay and planned controlled re-entry for any that might fail prematurely.
Benefits
By partnering with Neuraspace, you can achieve:
- Full compliance with space safety guidelines
- Enhanced mission safety by proactively identifying and mitigating risks from launch through to end-of-life.
- Optimized collision avoidance manoeuvres, saving fuel and extending satellite operational lifetimes.
- Positioned your company as a responsible actor in the increasingly congested space environment
To know more about our Mission Design services, schedule a call today.