Deutsche Orbitale Servicing Mission (DEOS)

As the overall mission and system prime SpaceTech established a technological baseline both, in terms of mission implementation and satellite design, for the first German servicing mission DEOS. The main goals of this mission are the rendezvous to and berthing of a non-cooperative and tumbling spacecraft by means of a manipulator system accommodated on a servicing satellite, the docking of the spacecraft via a dedicated docking device and servicing tasks in the coupled configuration as well as the controlled de-orbiting / re-entry of the spacecraft’s coupled configuration in the Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the mission.

In a Phase A contract to the German Aerospace Center DLR and leading a team of German small enterprises and university institutes, SpaceTech demonstrated the feasibility of the mission concept by establishing a concept for the different flight maneuvers, including far and close range rendezvous as well as fly-around maneuvers, by defining a realistic experiment program for the one year mission under consideration of environmental conditions and by providing an initial spacecraft design for the servicing as well as the client spacecraft.

For the ongoing Phase B, again in a direct contract to DLR, SpaceTech is responsible for the development of the client spacecraft. Furthermore, in a subcontract to OHB, SpaceTech is responsible for the overall mission planning, the GNC/AOCS simulation and coordination on system level as well as the system interface engineering.