The European Space Agency and ELV have recently signed a contract for the development of an alternative flight software (Flight Program Software Alternative – FPSA) that will be used for all operational flights of the European launcher VEGA. GMV participates in FPSA with a highly relevant role in different areas, especially in the design and validation of the GNC (Guidance, Navigation and Control).

Within the development team, GMV is responsible for the development of the Guidance and Navigation algorithms and the Roll and Attitude Control System (RACS). GMV is also providing relevant support for the design and validation of VEGA’s new Flight Manager.

In the area of guidance and navigation algorithms, a task of particular critical nature, GMV’s responsibility will consist in the computation of the guidance precision with the aim of reaching the final orbit and the verification of the fall/reentry requirements of the different launcher stages. GMV is also responsible of the FPSA quality assurance and for providing support to the RAMS activities (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety). To that end, staff from GMV assigned to these activities has been incorporated into the team responsible for the software development.

The ELV company, European Launch Vehicle, a joint venture between the multinational company AVIO (70%) and the Italian Space Agency-ASI (30%), is the VEGA prime contractor responsible for the design, integration, production and qualification of the launcher. The VEGA program has been designed to launch small payloads: satellites in the range of 300 to 2000 kg for scientific and Earth observation missions in low Earth and polar orbits.