FERROTHERM

FERROTHERM

FERROTHERM

“Moon Village” is considered one of the most important projects of manned space flight. However, the long-term energy supply for the urbanisation of the Moon has not yet been clarified. Temperatures vary between -170 °C and +120 °C, and solar energy is unavailable during the two week long moon nights. There are no fossil fuels on the Moon. The energy supply must be secured with lunar regolith, a mixture of different metal oxides. Current storage systems, such as batteries, heat accumulators or mechanical storage units, lack the capacity for long-term supply. The Fraunhofer IST and ICT are developing a process by which metallic iron can be extracted from regolith and used as a non-fossil fuel. Unlike fossil fuels, the combustion products are solid and can be collected. They are recycled in a novel process and can be reused. The unique solution uses a direct electrochemical process to recycle the iron oxide in order to produce iron again, bypassing the previously known hydrogen route. This makes the process very efficient. It operates at temperatures below 100°C. The process can be used terrestrially in modified power plants or combined heat and power plants and thus makes a significant contribution to climate protection (decarbonisation).

Benefits:

  • Circular economy
  • Time-independent energy supply (day/night) on the Moon
  • Iron fuel is extracted from lunar regolith
  • On Earth, the process makes an important contribution to decarbonisation
  • Combustion products are recycled by means of excess electricity

Fraunhofer IST
Dr Andreas Dietz
Andreas.Dietz@ist.fraunhofer.de
ist.fraunhofer.de

Fraunhofer

Spacecopter – A Novel Technical Approach for Reusable Space Launch Vehicles

Spacecopter – A Novel Technical Approach for Reusable Space Launch Vehicles

Spacecopter Plakat

The Spacecopter concept provides a new approach for reusable space launch vehicles that will not only drastically reduce the transportation cost for payloads into orbit but also has the potential to fundamentally revolutionise spaceflight. By combining known and well-established technologies from the automotive, electric flight and chemical battery industry, the Spacecopter project is a low-risk but highly innovative answer to the problem of high transportation costs for orbital payloads. Utilising electrically-driven propellers for the initial launch phase and to return rocket stages to the ground will not only reduce costs but also reduce the mechanical and acoustic loads for the payload. The Spacecopter concept will allow a commercial airline type of operation with only minor check-out procedures between flights. This not only allows completely new market approaches and business opportunities for launch service customers but will, in the long term, squeeze all classic expendable launch vehicles out of the market.

Benefits:

  • Cost reduction for space launch services of up to 80%
  • Low environmental impact and low carbon footprint
  • Low mechanical and acoustic impact on payloads
  • High reliability
  • Airline type of operation

ROBI – The Radiation Monitor

ROBI – The Radiation Monitor

ROBI

Sustained exposure to high-energy radiation can cause significant damage to both human and spacecraft life in space. Understanding the effects of radiation, as well as developing technology to counter its effects, necessitates a thorough understanding of the radiation environment.
The current capability allows us to study radiation around the near-Earth environment through statistical and analytical models. However, there is a paucity of empirical data that can aid accurate assessment of the environment. Digantara intends to fill this gap through actionable intelligence by measuring proton fluence and, as a result, proton radiation in near-real-time using in-situ radiation monitors. Digantara is developing ROBI – Radiation Monitor. The name ROBI means ‚Sun‘ in Sanskrit/Bengali, signifying the extensive presence of protons in space. ROBI is a proton fluence monitor that measures proton flux in real time. High-energy protons account for 95% of any solar event. Thus, measuring proton fluence is a good measure of ionising radiation in the near-Earth environment.

Benefits:

  • Miniaturised device: ultra-compact, extremely adaptable
  • Ultra-low power consumption
  • Digital output eliminates the need for supporting circuitry
  • Diverse applications from the medical sector to human space flight

HELIOS – The next step in interplanetary transportation

HELIOS – The next step in interplanetary transportation

Interplanetary Space Station Launch Into Space. 3D Illustration.

Chemical and electric space thrusters occupy opposite positions on the propulsion spectrum. The choice is to use chemical propulsion with a short but strong thrust-pulse and low efficiency in fuel utilisation, or electric propulsion with continuous long-term but weak thrust and high efficiency in converting fuel into momentum for the spacecraft. There is a big gap in thruster parameters between these main thruster species; a niche for electric high-thrust propulsion like Helios.
To guarantee the achievement of highly efficient fuel utilisation, the Helios high-thrust device is basically an electric propulsion system with the benefit of boosting fuel efficiency by coupling external electrical energy in thrust generation. Based on this high momentum generation per fuel particle, the Helios propulsion concept offers the capability of high momentum change per time; high thrust completes the basic benefits of electric space propulsion.

Benefits:

  • Helios high-thrust electric propulsion combines the flexibility of a continuous electric thruster with the powerful behaviour of a chemical-like thrust level
  • Ability to switch on and off on demand and to adjust the operational time
  • High thrust level, which is able to change the momentum of a craft with high inertia in short time
  • Capabilities to react to sudden disturbances and to significantly reduce travel time by reaching maximum velocity at an earlier point in the mission

Plasma Rocket Company
Dr Danny Kirmse
danny.kirmse05@gmail.com

A scalable solution for lane-level positioning

A scalable solution for lane-level positioning

Evening traffic

Lane-level navigation provides value for drivers with better ETA (estimated time of arrival) management, and more personalised and better anticipation for stress-free driving. Geoflex‘ high-accuracy lane-level positioning can be fitted in pretty much any car, with or without cameras. Moreover, high-accuracy lane-level map data can be crowdsourced at scale using the same vehicles. This creates a virtuous circle where the car with its positioning can detect new lane geometries, which can be sent to a map server to add to the coverage. The innovation relies on software algorithms that can be easily integrated into the navigation stack without complex integration with a computer vision system. There is no hardware upgrade needed and the new car position at decimeter accuracy can be broadcast to the navigation software instead of a standard GNSS feed. The positioning service is available worldwide, it leverages the 4 GNSS constellations (GPS, Galileo, Beidu, Glonass) and can be fused with other sensors with high integrity.

Benefits:

  • Improve car positioning from metric accuracy to centimetric accuracy
  • Maximise the value of GNSS, the only absolute positioning technology available in a car
  • Improve the integrity and availability of multi-sensor positioning engines
  • Leverage a wide range of applications from navigation to autonomous driving

Geoflex
Nicolas Burger
Ludovic Privat
contact@geoflex.fr
www.geoflex.fr

Monitoring of traffic routes by a solar-electric-powered ultralight aircraft and innovative multi-sensor 3D capturing and processing technology

Monitoring of traffic routes by a solar-electric-powered ultralight aircraft and innovative multi-sensor 3D capturing and processing technology

Foto Elektra_s

Extreme weather events such as storms and drought as well as pest infestation weaken the vegetation alongside railways and roads, which can endanger operational safety. The Deutsche Bahn invests up to 125 million euros each year in the inspection and management of the tree vegetation along the railway infrastructure. Elektra Solar and RealityMaps have developed a new geodata acquisition system that significantly improves existing technologies for assessing and monitoring the health condition of the vegetation alongside railways. It consists of an environmentally friendly, solar-electric-powered ultralight aircraft, a multi-sensor 3D camera system and AI-based data evaluation. This unique system makes it possible to record aerial images, 3D elevation, thermal imagery and multispectral data simultaneously in one flight. Productivity is much higher, while providing a similar spatial resolution to UAVs.

Benefits:

  • Extremely efficient and environmentally friendly collection of spatial data from the air
  • Detailed recording of the health condition of the vegetation with a multi-sensor 3D camera system
  • Digitisation of up to 400 km of railways per day
  • Also suitable for road management and monitoring of construction measures (BIM)
  • Calculation of virtual 3D models and digital twins with a level of detail that has never been achieved before

3D RealityMaps GmbH
Prof Florian Siegert
siegert@realitymaps.de
www.realitymaps.de
Elektra Solar GmbH
Dr Sven Schmid
sven.schmid@elektra-uas.de
www.elektra-uas.de

DLTEO – the one-stop shop for the earth observation data market

DLTEO – the one-stop shop for the earth observation data market

dlteo

The Earth Observation (EO) data product market will grow exponentially to become another full-fledged commodity market, yet there are two key elements that are currently missing from it:

  • Low friction and barriers for users via easy-to-use interfaces that allow players in the industry chain to bypass specialists
  • Customisability of data processing pipelines to allow for easy fusion of different data sources to EO data, to help define new correlations and consolidate all previously fragmented value chain activities in one platform

Meanwhile, many companies have a high demand for EO data products that is either partially or fully unmet due to the difficulties of integrating into the current market. DLTEO GmbH is developing a decentralised, transparent, scalable and fair new market era. DLTEO is an AI-run, peer-to-peer and crowd-sourced EO data mining and trading „one-stop shop“. DLTEO has created a new serverless, scalable, decentralised fusion-computing paradigm enabling customised EO digital assets to be processed and traded transparently yet privately in quasi-real time at any point in the data’s lifecycle.

Benefits:

  • One-stop shop for all market levels (Downstream, Midstream, Upstream)
  • Buy/sell/process data locally or on our distributed network
  • Customers stay in control of their data! The data is always encrypted, safe from third parties
  • Fully open-source and externally auditable tech stack
  • Unique decentralised architecture built on cutting-edge technology
  • Support for complex data and processing licence agreements (subscriptions, quality
    guarantees, etc.)

DLTEO GmbH
Ignaty Romanov-Chernigovsky
ignaty.r@dlteo.com
www.dlteo.com

New biological microgravity test platform

New biological microgravity test platform

Imagen 1

Micro G Scope (MGS) is an innovative approach to the problem of biological testing in space, using an innovative fluorescence contact CMOS microscope and special growing chamber in a CubeSat. The technical requirements for space biology are enormous, and the effort to reduce the cost while maintaining precision and safety is huge. The project’s goal is to solve the problem of the accessibility
(and cost) of biological tests in space by providing not only an instrument for biological experiments, but a whole service for pharma and bio-tech companies that will include: experiment design, cell preparation microscale fluorescence microscope, and calibration chamber. In addition, the microlaboratory could be easily modified to accommodate alternative experiments such as seed and spore germination, embryology studies, and the production of nutrients in space, among others. Micro G Scope‘s first design is aimed at testing cancer drugs in space to extract information on whether these drugs work under reduced gravity conditions. The project is currently at SRR level (System Requirements Review) through PDR (Preliminary Design Review).

Benefits:

  • New cell chamber and microscope design for biological experiments in space based on a lensless design with no moving parts and the size of a credit card
  • Reduced cost and time to perform the experiments
  • New full service for the pharma industry where experiment preparation, mission accomplishments, and data review are transparent for the client

JMP ingenieros SL
Jorge Remírez Miguel
jorge.remirez@jmpingenieros.es
Alfredo Martinez Ramirez
amartinezr@riojasalud.es
www.jmpingenieros.es

ALReCo – Orbit Recycling’s new composite material for sustainable Moon exploration

ALReCo – Orbit Recycling’s new composite material for sustainable Moon exploration

INNOspace_Broschuere_2020-2021-Druck-3rd Airbus

Humans are heading back to the Moon. Artemis and the Lunar Gateway programme are on their way and the next step will be the lunar ground station. But one major problem for a sustainable outpost on the Moon remains: Moon dust (regolith) doesn’t have the right material properties to either store energy efficiently or to be an ideal construction material. The result would be to transport massive quantities of material from the Earth. Orbit Recycling has developed a new composite: ALReCo. Using a unique method, regolith is mixed with material from space debris to enhance its physical properties. ALReCo shows improved thermal capacity and conductivity in order to store energy much better. ALReCo is better suited to construction elements and the integration of aluminium structures, and flanges with regolith parts could become a modular framework for the upcoming Moon base. By turning waste into valuable material, ALReCo reduces not only the amount of space debris but the amount of material that needs to be transported from Earth as well.

Benefits:

  • ALReCo enables a self-paying space debris recycling concept
  • ALReCo reduces material transportation during the construction of the lunar ground station
  • ALReCo offers flexible use cases, from construction elements to energy storage solutions

SpaceFlow

SpaceFlow

SpaceFlow

Energy security plays a major role for satellites and space stations due to their isolated places of operation. Since solar energy is often used to operate these spacecraft, reliable energy storage systems are crucial to compensate for fluctuations in direct solar radiation. These storage systems need to have a very long service life as well as a high operational safety in order to sustainably reduce resource-intensive replacement missions as well as hazards for humans and equipment. However, the battery systems currently used in spacecraft have significant deficits in these areas. That’s why, with »SpaceFlow«, a new energy storage concept for space applications is being presented, which completely fulfils the requirements. »SpaceFlow« is an incomparably long-lasting, charge-cycle-stable, safe and reliable redox flow battery system based on porous metal foam electrodes and zinc-polyiodide electrolytes. The innovative design allows the pressure-stable yet flexible battery cells to be integrated directly into the spacecraft support structures, so that, in addition to energy storage, other functions such as module stiffening or thermal management can be realised with an efficient use of space.

Benefits:

  • Very long service life and theoretically unlimited cycle stability
  • Particularly high operational safety and environmentally neutral cell chemistry
  • Very efficient use of space with multiple applications

Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental,
Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT
Jan Girschik
jan.girschik@umsicht.fraunhofer.de
www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de