Eross project – european autonomous robotic vehicle for on- orbit servicing

Current robotic developments for space application are making on-orbit servicing missions closer to reality, while also paving the way for future challenges like autonomous rendezvous with celestial bodies or active debris removal. Such technologies are being developed and integrated towards an experimental ground demonstration under the H2020 “European Robotic Orbital Support Services” (EROSS) project. It aims at developing, integrating and demonstrating the key European robotic building blocks within an autonomous solution for servicing tasks in orbit. EROSS assesses and demonstrates the capability of a servicing spacecraft to perform medium and closerange rendezvous, and then to capture and manipulate a client satellite with a highest degree of autonomy. The client satellite is considered collaborative and prepared as it is designed with specific features to ease the rendezvous and capture. More importantly, it is assumed to be designed for servicing operations such as refuelling and payload replacement. This project is led by Thales Alenia Space with support from GMV, National Technical University of Athens, PIAP Space, SENER, SINTEF AS, SODERN, Space Application Services, with additional collaboration with MDA and QinetiQ. EROSS project is co-funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement N°821904 and part of the Strategic Research Cluster on Space Robotics Technologies as Operational Grant n°7.