Since the beginning of the space era, a huge amount of debris has progressively been generated in space. Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions have been suggested as a way of limiting and controlling future growth in orbital space debris by actively sending up vehicles to remove debris. The EC FP7 RemoveDebris mission, which started in 2013, draws on the expertise of some of Europe's most prominent space institutions in order to demonstrate key ADR technologies in a low-cost ambitious manner: net capture, harpoon capture, vision-based navigation, dragsail de-orbiting. This paper provides a review of final payload test results before launch. A comprehensive test campaign is underway on both payloads and platform. The tests aim to demonstrate both functional success of the experiments and that the experiments can survive the space environment. Space environmental tests (EVT) include vibration, thermal, vacuum or thermal-vacuum (TVAC) and in some cases EMC and shock. The test flow differs for each payload and depends on the heritage of the constituent payload parts. The paper will also provide an update to the launch, expected in 2017 from the International Space Station (ISS), and test philosophy that has been influenced from the launch and prerequisite NASA safety review for the mission. The RemoveDebris mission aims to be one of the world's first in-orbit demonstrations of key technologies for active debris removal and is a vital prerequisite to achieving the ultimate goal of a cleaner Earth orbital environment.

Since the beginning of the space era, a significant amount of debris has progressively been generated in space. Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions have been suggested as a way of limiting and controlling future growth in orbital space debris by actively sending up vehicles to remove debris. The EC FP7 RemoveDebris mission, which started in 2013, draws on the expertise of some of Europe's most prominent space institutions in order to demonstrate key ADR technologies in a low-cost ambitious manner. The RemoveDebris mission launches to the International Space Station (ISS) in late 2017 where shortly after it will be deployed via the NanoRacks Kaber system into an orbit of around 400 km. The mission will perform its core demonstrations sequentially, utilising two CubeSats as artificial debris targets: net capture, harpoon capture, vision-based navigation , dragsail de-orbiting. The mission comes to an end in 2018 with all space entities having naturally de-orbited. This paper is split into the following parts: (a) an overview of the mission segments, (b) a discussion on launch procedures, (c) an overview of the operations sequence and demonstration timelines. The second section will focus on the specifics of the launch via NanoRacks and respective the NASA safety reviews. The third section will outline the planned operational timelines for the payloads. There will be a focus on what demonstrations will be performed and what types of data will be collected. The RemoveDebris mission aims to be one of the world's first in-orbit demonstrations of key technologies for active debris removal and is a vital prerequisite to achieving the ultimate goal of a cleaner Earth orbital environment.

The EC FP7 RemoveDebris mission aims to be one of the world's first Active Debris Removal (ADR) missions to demonstrate key technologies in-orbit in a cost-effective ambitious manner, including: net capture, harpoon capture, vision-based navigation, dragsail de-orbitation. The mission will utilise two CubeSats as artificial debris targets to demonstrate the technologies. In early 2018, the main 100 kg satellite will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) where it will be deployed via the NanoRacks Kaber system into an orbit of around 400 km. The mission comes to an end in 2018 with all space entities having been de-orbited. Previous papers have outlined the mission architecture and design, the demonstrations, and the test campaign. This paper continues by initially overviewing the pre-flight final configuration of the payloads and platform. The second section will focus on the specifics of the launch via Space X / NanoRacks, and compliance to the NASA safety reviews. As the satellite is being transported to the ISS as cargo, it will require manipulation by astronauts to ready it for deployment. The final section will detail the planned operational timeline, including the timeframe for the experiments, an overview of the operational sequences to be performed and the desired mission results. Future mega-satellite constellations are now being proposed, where hundreds to thousands of satellites are being launched into orbit. A coherent strategy, along with technological and platform developments, is needed for de-orbiting, re-orbiting, or servicing of such constellations. The RemoveDebris mission is a vital prerequisite to achieving the ultimate goal of a cleaner Earth orbital environment, and is a core step in the development of active removal vehicles, or on-orbit servicing vehicles of the future.

Penetrators are low mass instrumented packages that can withstand high impact decelerations. They have been launched on two unsuccessful missions to Mars - Mars'96 and DS2, and were developed for the Lunar A mission to the moon which has now been cancelled. Although the benefit of penetrators in planetary in situ science still remains to be demonstrated successfully there is a strong case to be made for the concept. The MoonLITE consortium was formed in the UK with the aim of delivering penetrators to the Moon to do scientific measurements. This presentation outlines the scientific opportunities penetrators offer for lunar science. MoonLITE, a proposed lunar penetrator mission, and its candidate payload instruments are presented.

MoonLITE is a proposed four penetrator lunar mission. Following a US/UK working group assessment, a science assessment and the first UK impact trials, a full mission-level phase A study has begun. A technological and programmatic update of the mission is given.

Returning to the Moon has been advocated by a large number of international planetary scientists in order to answer several key scientific questions. The UK also has an active lunar science community keen to support (robotic) lunar exploration missions. However, for several years these interests have been eclipsed by the drive to Mars. Recently there is a renewed global interest in the Moon demonstrated by the Vision for Space Exploration in the USA, the evolving Global Exploration Partnership, and new lunar missions from Europe, Japan, China, India and the USA. The ESA Aurora programme may also broaden its focus to embrace the Moon as well as Mars-realizing that the risks associated with many of the major technical challenges that are faced by Mars missions could be reduced by relatively inexpensive and timely lunar technology tests. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) and Surrey Space Centre (SSC) have been preparing a 'smallsat' approach [Sweeting, M.N., Underwood, C.I., 2003. Small-satellite engineering and applications. In: Fortescue, P.. Stark, J., Swinerd, G., (Eds.), Spacecraft Systems Engineering, third edition. Wiley, New York, pp. 581-612] to achieving a low-cost lunar mission for more than a decade-including various activities, such as the earlier LunarSat study funded by ESA and a current hardware contribution to the Chandrayaan-1 mission. With the recent successes in GIOVE-A, TOPSAT and BEIJING-1,(1) alongside participation in Aurora and Chandrayaan-1, Surrey have developed capabilities for providing affordable engineering solutions to space exploration. Recently, SSTL/SSC was funded by the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) (now subsumed into the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council) to undertake a study on low-cost lunar mission concepts that could address key scientific questions. This paper presents some major results from this study [Phipps and Gao, 2006. Lunar mission options study. UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council Report Reference No. 118537, pp. 1-104] and provides preliminary definitions of two mission proposals. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction: While the surface missions to the Moon of the 1960s and 1970s achieved a great deal, scientifically a great deal was also left unresolved. The recent plethora of lunar missions (flown or proposed) reflects resurgence in interest in the Moon, not only in its own right, but also as a record of the formation of the Earth-Moon System and the interplanetary environment at 1 AU. Results from orbiter missions have indicated the possible presense of ice within permanently shaded craters at the lunar poles [1] – a situation that, if confirmed, will have profound impacts on lunar exploration.

1 UK MoonLITE Mission Yang Gao, Andy Phipps, Mark Taylor, Jim Clemmet, Ian A. Crawford, Andrew J. Ball, Lionel Wilson, Dave Parker, Martin Sweeting, Alex da Silva Curiel, Phil Davies, Adam Baker Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK, yang.gao@surrey.ac.uk Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, Surrey Space Centre, Guildford GU2 7YE, UK British National Space Centre, London, SW1W 9SS, UK School of Earth Sciences, Birkbeck College, London WC1E 7HX, UK Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK Environmental Science Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK Abstract

Returning to the Moon has been advocated by a number of planetary scientists in order to answer several key scientific questions. The UK has an active lunar science community keen to support (robotic) lunar exploration. However, for several years, these interests have been eclipsed by the drive to Mars. Recently there is a renewed global interest in the Moon, demonstrated by the Vision for Space Exploration in the USA, the evolving Global Exploration Partnership, and new lunar missions from Europe, Japan, China and India. The ESA Aurora programme may also broaden its focus to embrace the Moon as well as Mars - realising that many of the major technical challenges that are faced by Mars missions could be de-risked by relatively inexpensive and timely lunar precursors. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) and Surrey Space Centre (SSC) have been preparing a 'smallsat' approach to achieving a low-cost lunar mission for more than a decade - including various activities, such as Phase B study of LunarSat funded by ESA and a current hardware contribution to the Chandrayaan-1 mission. With the recent successes in GIOVE-A, TOPSAT & BEIJING-1, alongside participation in Aurora & Chandrayaan-1, Surrey has developed capabilities for providing affordable engineering solutions to space exploration. In 2006, SSTL/SSC was funded by the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) (now included within the UK Science & Technology Facilities Council) to undertake a study on low-cost lunar mission concepts that could address key scientific questions. This paper presents some major results from this study (Phipps and Gao, 2006) and provides preliminary definitions of two down-selected mission proposals. Copyright IAF/IAA. All rights reserved.

For many of the proposed planetary exploration missions, robotically collected sample materials must be returned to the Earth for more detailed analysis. For the more interesting locations in the solar system, full planetary protection guidelines must be taken into account to prevent cross contamination. So far, few missions have demonstrated re-entry from interplanetary space, which requires a considerably greater velocity change than the more common Earth orbit re-entry missions, and so far none have dealt with the planetary protection issues. Missions such as the proposed Mars Sample Return mission must depend on reliable systems to carry out a sample return. Such a complex safety critical system can of course not be used for the first time on a real mission, nor can it be tested under Earth laboratory conditions. This paper proposes a design concept for an European Space Agency testbed to help validate the necessary technology. The spacecraft will carry scientific instruments to help characterise the environment, so that subsequent missions can rely on this.

It has been 35 years since the last human presence on the Moon. Since then, our knowledge of the Solar System has expanded immeasurably, bringing us up against questions that are impossible to answer on Earth. There is now a global renewed interest in returning to the Moon, driven by the demands of science and as a stepping-stone for human exploration of the Solar System. The Moon provides a unique record of processes affecting evolution of terrestrial planets in early Solar System history (the first Gyr or so). This includes internal processes of geological evolution (e.g. differentiation and the first formation of a crust) and external processes caused by the environment (e.g. meteorite flux, interplanetary dust density, solar wind flux and composition, galactic cosmic ray flux) that are not as easily accessible anywhere else in our solar system.

SSTL has been studying the application of its highly successful Low Earth Orbit micro and mini-satellites for lunar and planetary missions since 1996, through in-house funded design exercises and supported by ESA through Lunar and inner planet mission studies. Technical feasibility of a minisatellite lunar orbiter has been demonstrated. SSTL has since developed a range of improved subsystems and more advanced platforms, many of which have gained heritage in-orbit. These include the GMP-MiniSat platform with deployable solar arrays, accurate 3-axis stabilized attitude control, high resolution and wide field-of-view multispectral cameras and low cost bipropellant propulsion systems. Low cost launch options range from a Proton auxiliary payload launch direct to geostationary orbit, to prime passenger on a PSLV, to secondary payload alongside larger lunar missions. While SSTL is focused on low cost lunar orbiter development, it is jointly considering affordable means of conducting lunar landing, and ultimately sample return with the University of Surrey Space Centre. Lunar landing and sample return would demonstrate the applicability of low-cost small spacecraft technology to reduce the risk of high profile and barely affordable missions such as Mars Sample Return, by demonstrating key technologies, offering secondary science, and increased mission frequency to build enthusiastic public and political support. A parametric study for a lunar sample return mission from the south polar Aitken basin is highlighted, which has shown that a 15kg rover can in principle be landed on the lunar surface for a maximum surface stay of 150hours, subsequently returning a 200g sample to Earth, for a total launch mass from Earth orbit of less than 500kg, using a mixture of chemical and electric propulsion. This paper briefly considers the technology requirements and COTS technology availability for the separate mission stages, in order to establish how SSTL's low cost approach may be applicable to this challenging mission. This study is an ongoing area of research between SSTL and the University of Surrey Space centre.

Traditionally interplanetary spacecraft are expensive, and have development schedules lasting up to 10 years. Being so high cost few concepts reach the manufacture phase. As a result of the infrequency of these missions, more experiments and supporting systems become incorporated, further driving up the cost, and delaying the schedule. Programmes rapidly become unaffordable. The Venus Entry Probe is one of ESA's technology reference studies. It aims to identify the technologies required to develop a low cost science-driven mission for in-situ exploration of the atmosphere of Venus, and the philosophy which can be adopted. The mission includes a science gathering spacecraft in circular polar Venus orbit, a relay satellite in elliptical Venus orbit, and an atmospheric entry probe delivering a long duration aerobot, which will drop several microprobes during its operational phase. This paper will focus on the design of the mission, spacecraft and aerobot, with particular emphasis on system level trade-offs. Recognising that resource reduction (mass, power, volume etc.) will be a key requirement to achieving low recurring cost spacecraft, the project has identified a variety of innovative mission enabling and mission enhancing technologies.