Low volume production of a diverse variety of products represents a significant challenge to the high value manufacturing sector. Achieving acceptable levels of productivity and equipment utilisation whilst also ensuring consistently the requisite part quality is more challenging than in high volume production.
Industrial digitalisation offers the potential to revolutionise low volume manufacturing through improved factory planning, process monitoring and control, supported by digital twins of the manufacturing plant, enabling dynamic scheduling of flexible reconfigurable production lines.
In this 6 month, sprint-style Flexible Manufacturing Systems project, Open Cosmos (OC), a pioneering space SME, in collaboration with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult's Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), will investigate the potential to apply a range of Industrial Digital Technologies (IDTs) to flexible low volume production. The partnership is supported by an Industrial Advisory Board with SME representation from sectors including motorsport, additive manufacturing, electronics and life-sciences sharing common challenges around low-volume manufacturing of high value, diverse products.
The results of the project will have an immediate impact driving the design of a new reconfigurable manufacturing line, which is scheduled to be installed next year, enabling Open Cosmos to meet the demand for small satellites. Open Cosmos has pioneered a new end-to-end approach, based around a modular cubesat concept, with easy access through a toolkit of application software (beeApp), covering every aspect of mission planning and execution, which has driven demand from both private and public organisations, including the European Space Agency.
The new manufacturing site will also allow the sharing of state-of-the-art manufacturing and test facilities. A key aspect of the innovation within this project is the application of IDTs to ensure smooth production scheduling, high levels of equipment utilisation and consistent part quality in the new facility which is critical for the success of the space industry.
The knowledge from the project will be cascaded through the Industrial Advisory Board and other parties through dissemination and training activities led by the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.
There is no better way to get a view of the world other than space! As we face major challenges like preserving our environment, a revolution in data available from satellites is already happening and is helping us gain valuable insight in almost every aspect of life on Earth and business.
With massive scale computing we can process Tbytes of data and use A.I. tools to analyse and present it. At the same time, the emergence of inexpensive, diverse and more sophisticated satellites and launch, has led to an exciting new breed of companies that sell this data beyond defence.
OpenCosmos is part of them, but one of the few capable of delivering end-to-end satellite missions in a fast and affordable way and with a completely new business model for space: The OpenConstellation, a global, shared satellite infrastructure built and managed by OpenCosmos to enable everyone to access satellite data.
By sharing space assets, we are dramatically lowering the cost and simplifying access to critical Earth Observation (EO) data that otherwise would be available through owned satellites or inflexible data purchase schemes. OpenCosmos has also been developing the suite of operational tools needed to operate a constellation and DataCosmos, a software platform providing advanced visualisation and applications for geospatial data.
The UK is our home market and this six-month project will enable us to study the commercial and technical feasibility of our OpenConstellation for the next stage of growth, which is ambitious. Our service is intended to reach millions of unique data users via enabling a global ecosystem of value-add solution providers of geospatial data. We will be looking at validating the market requirement as well as defining and developing the technical concepts. We will conclude by identifying next steps in the development and commercialisation of the system and service.
The Magdrive Nano is a revolutionary electric plasma thruster capable of both high thrust and high efficiency for satellites and deep space transport. The Magdrive Nano reduces the required propellant for satellite lifetimes and manoeuvres. This makes new missions possible for small and large companies from startups to industry primes, such as rendezvousing with larger satellites, long term constellation management, and deployment and deorbiting for satellites of all sizes without reducing satellite lifetimes.
Magdrive Ltd is partnering with Open Cosmos, a space mission provider based at Harwell Campus that provides end-to-end space missions. To benefit from the latest technologies, Open Cosmos assists hardware developers to design and integrate their hardware into nanosatellites, using affordable development hardware called OpenKit and software which the developer can use in their own premises.
The collaborative goal is to complete integration of our systems to qualify the equipment to later reach 'flight-proven' heritage essential to commercialise a new product. Open Cosmos (OC) is a space mission provider, aggregating the satellite together with launch and operation services supported by launch providers and ground station providers. This opens up the new space market to hardware developers, who can focus on developing their products.
There is increasing concern regarding Space Junk which is leading to market demand for small satellites to be fitted with miniaturised propulsion systems. This is particularly relevant to the large constellation customers. It is also a highly competitive and price sensitive market requiring a novel 'off-the-shelf' solution that can be manufactured at high volume and low cost. By partnering, our two organisations will be able to offer the market an integrated satellite solution to customers requiring propulsion for longer mission lifetime or constellation deployment and maintenance. This is particularly time sensitive as the majority of large constellations are planned to launch in the next four years.
The Magdrive Nano is a revolutionary electric plasma thruster capable of both high thrust and high efficiency for satellites and deep space transport. The Magdrive Nano reduces the required propellant for satellite lifetimes and manoeuvres. This makes new missions possible for small and large companies from startups to industry primes, such as rendezvousing with larger satellites, long term constellation management, and deployment and deorbiting for satellites of all sizes without reducing satellite lifetimes.
Magdrive Ltd is partnering with Open Cosmos, a space mission provider based at Harwell Campus that provides end-to-end space missions. To benefit from the latest technologies, Open Cosmos assists hardware developers to design and integrate their hardware into nanosatellites, using affordable development hardware called OpenKit and software which the developer can use in their own premises.
The collaborative goal is to complete integration of our systems to qualify the equipment to later reach 'flight-proven' heritage essential to commercialise a new product. Open Cosmos (OC) is a space mission provider, aggregating the satellite together with launch and operation services supported by launch providers and ground station providers. This opens up the new space market to hardware developers, who can focus on developing their products.
There is increasing concern regarding Space Junk which is leading to market demand for small satellites to be fitted with miniaturised propulsion systems. This is particularly relevant to the large constellation customers. It is also a highly competitive and price sensitive market requiring a novel 'off-the-shelf' solution that can be manufactured at high volume and low cost. By partnering, our two organisations will be able to offer the market an integrated satellite solution to customers requiring propulsion for longer mission lifetime or constellation deployment and maintenance. This is particularly time sensitive as the majority of large constellations are planned to launch in the next four years.
The Magdrive Nano is a revolutionary electric plasma thruster capable of both high thrust and high efficiency for satellites and deep space transport. The Magdrive Nano reduces the required propellant for satellite lifetimes and manoeuvres. This makes new missions possible for small and large companies from startups to industry primes, such as rendezvousing with larger satellites, long term constellation management, and deployment and deorbiting for satellites of all sizes without reducing satellite lifetimes.
Magdrive Ltd is partnering with Open Cosmos, a space mission provider based at Harwell Campus that provides end-to-end space missions. To benefit from the latest technologies, Open Cosmos assists hardware developers to design and integrate their hardware into nanosatellites, using affordable development hardware called OpenKit and software which the developer can use in their own premises.
The collaborative goal is to complete integration of our systems to qualify the equipment to later reach 'flight-proven' heritage essential to commercialise a new product. Open Cosmos (OC) is a space mission provider, aggregating the satellite together with launch and operation services supported by launch providers and ground station providers. This opens up the new space market to hardware developers, who can focus on developing their products.
There is increasing concern regarding Space Junk which is leading to market demand for small satellites to be fitted with miniaturised propulsion systems. This is particularly relevant to the large constellation customers. It is also a highly competitive and price sensitive market requiring a novel 'off-the-shelf' solution that can be manufactured at high volume and low cost. By partnering, our two organisations will be able to offer the market an integrated satellite solution to customers requiring propulsion for longer mission lifetime or constellation deployment and maintenance. This is particularly time sensitive as the majority of large constellations are planned to launch in the next four years.
The Magdrive Nano is a revolutionary electric plasma thruster capable of both high thrust and high efficiency for satellites and deep space transport. The Magdrive Nano reduces the required propellant for satellite lifetimes and manoeuvres. This makes new missions possible for small and large companies from startups to industry primes, such as rendezvousing with larger satellites, long term constellation management, and deployment and deorbiting for satellites of all sizes without reducing satellite lifetimes.
Magdrive Ltd is partnering with Open Cosmos, a space mission provider based at Harwell Campus that provides end-to-end space missions. To benefit from the latest technologies, Open Cosmos assists hardware developers to design and integrate their hardware into nanosatellites, using affordable development hardware called OpenKit and software which the developer can use in their own premises.
The collaborative goal is to complete integration of our systems to qualify the equipment to later reach 'flight-proven' heritage essential to commercialise a new product. Open Cosmos (OC) is a space mission provider, aggregating the satellite together with launch and operation services supported by launch providers and ground station providers. This opens up the new space market to hardware developers, who can focus on developing their products.
There is increasing concern regarding Space Junk which is leading to market demand for small satellites to be fitted with miniaturised propulsion systems. This is particularly relevant to the large constellation customers. It is also a highly competitive and price sensitive market requiring a novel 'off-the-shelf' solution that can be manufactured at high volume and low cost. By partnering, our two organisations will be able to offer the market an integrated satellite solution to customers requiring propulsion for longer mission lifetime or constellation deployment and maintenance. This is particularly time sensitive as the majority of large constellations are planned to launch in the next four years.
The innovation of the solution is intrinsic to the process. Using open-source libraries and cloud services providers we are going to change entirely how the AIT phase of a satellite is run, in all but the Vibration, Electromagnetic and Thermal-vacuum test phases.
With only 1 engineer in the clean-room controlling the power systems, several AIT engineers will perform reference functional tests from each of their homes, and will receive real-time telemetry from the satellite.
Supported by standard business videoconference tools, the remote engineers will coordinate with the onsite staff to trigger specific actions requiring physical access, and will share and evaluate the results of the tests executed from home, gathering all the data in the cloud for later post-processing.
All this will happen in a simultaneous, multi-user access, which is currently not available in the on-site system. This will also bring reliability to the system, since the overall data gathering and processing chain will be performed in virtual machines on the cloud, which can be backed-up and replicated in a matter of minutes, and to which users access by means of end-to-end encrypted internet protocols based on our standard corporate internet credentials, without the need for VPNs.
The same process applies to remote mission operations, which now will feature the possibility of simultaneous multi-user access, enabling the distributed team of mission operators to still receive telemetry and insights of the satellites health status, and to control them, following the assigned rights to each of the users.
This is to be a containerised software image that relays the information to/from the cloud server, and the associated software on the server that allows access and visibility to the data.
The Extension of Impact phase will support the operational procedures of the flight team with the set of tools previously developed. The flight team procedures are the set of pre-defined actions that the satellite operators create to know how to face different scenarios when operating the satellite. Traditionally, this would be made mainly by reviewing subsystem documentation and manuals. For this extension, Open Cosmos would use the developed software tools infrastructure to test and verify those procedures in a simulated scenario using the user interfaces of the real remote control center, increasing the impacts of your developed infrastructure on the ongoing missions and bringing benefits to the industry by validating the remote approach to additional tasks. This would also be directly applicable to future missions where the satellite operations might not belong to Open Cosmos.
CubeSats are small, standardised satellites consisting of one or multiple 10x10x10cm3 units, with ~1kg per unit. They play an increasingly important role in commercial spaceflight and are being considered for more and more commercial and scientific space missions, due to the low-cost and low-risk approach. The size and mass constraints of CubeSats generally put a limitation on the available area for solar arrays and therefore power generation capability. This in effect limits the types of applications that can be flown on CubeSats. A number of commercial applications require very high power for enabling new generations of payloads (Earth Observation or space-based Telecommunications) or for operational reasons (for pointing-towards-Earth sensors or cooling-from-Sun-heat devices). These missions currently have to fly on much larger satellites that can provide the needed power. A significant increase of power available to CubeSats will be a game-changer by enabling a whole new range of missions to fit into the CubeSat format, drastically reducing the risk and cost associated with these missions. This project aims to establish a design for a high power solar panel system which can be integrated onto the standardised CubeSat platforms. The project aims to build an engineering model of a solar panel and perform integrated testing with a CubeSat. The high power solar panel system will feature innovative solutions to increase the power generated by the panel, while maintaining the mass and size restrictions. Novel solar panels and mechanisms will be combined into one system to deliver a more than 60% increase in power generated on CubeSats compared to the current state-of-the-art.
Feasibility study of the implementation of better services and use of nanosatellites to satisfy the demand of data in multiple sectors. The miniaturisation of payloads is enabling nanosatellites to generate useful datasets that will be used to target specific needs in several remote sensing sectors.