GMV’s COBRA concept (System for Contactless Earth-bound orbit modification) has won the 2012 SYSNOVA competition.

SysNova is a space concept competition run by the European Space Agency (ESA) to compare solutions to specific space-mission challenges. SysNova studies deal with the preliminary design of innovative mission concepts. The 2012 Announcement of Opportunity was called SEALS (Sustainable near-Earth Access and Life Support) under which five study contracts were awarded, two of them to GMV-led teams and another for a study in which GMV is taking part.

GMV presented the studies: “System for Contactless Earth-bound orbit modification” (COBRA) and “Binary asteroid orbit modification system” (BEAST). GMV also formed part of another study led by Strathclyde University.

All SysNova studies ran in parallel and lasted two months. To ensure optimum fulfilment of both technical and programmatic aspects, the team proposed technical solutions for both problems based on re-use of existing technology and platforms, duly brought into line with mission-scenario requirements.

An ESA jury awarded the prize to the ‘COBRa’ team during the final review conducted at the end of January in ESA’s technological research center, ESTEC. Together with GMV, which is leading the project, the team is also made up by Milan Polytechnic (Italy) and Thales Alenia Space (Italy).

The COBRA study calls for a chaser spacecraft to fly in close formation with a debris object and use one of its thrusters to push the debris object into a lower orbit. The chaser spacecraft is a modified version of the Elite bus, which is also used for the Iridium Next constellation. Modifications are made only to the payload module; this means there is no need for requalification of the spacecraft bus.

The clinching factors for winning this competition were its innovativeness, simplicity and the practicality of its design approach, which minimized the development risk and focused instead on the challenging key elements required: plume impingement modeling, image processing and rendezvous and formation flying GNC.