Over the last 20 years, there has been two leading trends miniaturization and New Space in the field of satellite technologies and services have driven an important reshaping of the space launch market, that are still ongoing in the space marketplace as of today. In this context, the majority of satellites has changed drastically in typical dimension, mass, and cost which together with new target orbits has created the requirement for newly adapted launch services: more flexible and fault-resilient operating in low-earth orbits (LEO), closer to the Earth providing service to two main groups of clients: mainly payloads below 100 Kg and secondly payloads ranging between 100-500 Kg. The limitation in terms of delivery, in this sector of spacecraft market, is the availability of a size specific, reliable, cost effective dedicated launch vehicle. ENVOL will answer that need with a cost-effective, flexible and reliable service that grants Europe with autonomous access to space. ENVOL main objective is to provide Europe its prime commercial, competitive and green launch service, utilizing a true New Space approach to offer low-cost, frequent and flexible access to space to small satellites in the range of 100 to 200 kg to polar and sun-synchronous orbits in the altitude range 600 to 800 km by 2024. The project will run for 36 months, with 9 industrial companies from 7 European countries. The total EC contribution is worth 4M€. Within the Industrial Consortia, GTD will develop two main tasks: - Ground: the assessment of the integration process of the ENVOL launch service in the Andøya Spaceport ASP (Norway). - Board: the detailed definition of the avionics architecture and the GNC / On-board safety functions in the Level 3 Flight Software (FSW) GTD in a tight cooperation with Andøya Spaceport analyses the existing infrastructures and systems at the ASP with the objective of assessing the compatibility between the Launch Service requirements and the Base Services. First, the ground architecture and the concept of operations (CONOPS) to host ENVOL are defined. Secondly GTD studies proof-of-concept technologies in the frame of 4.0 that contribute to upgrade the spaceport so that it matches the business case requirements of cost and campaign duration enabling as a result a successful launch from ASP. The second tasks begins with the definition of the avionics architecture and equipment in a design loop with the rest of the launcher subsystems (structures, propulsion, and orbital module) under design criteria: cost, mass, volume, power consumption and communications. GNC and On-board flight safety (OBFS) are the critical functions in the upper level of the launcher FSW. GTD designs and implements new SW architectures and methodologies to improve the on-board functions of GNC and OBFS with more autonomous, missionization and multi-mission capabilities. To that aim GTD proposes a SW in the loop approach (SWIL) consisting in the continuous SW development and validation embedded in a verification platform. The platform allows to simulate all Flight SW interfaces with avionics and other launcher subsystems, while emulating the computing capacities in a real-time OS.
