Initial safety posture investigations for earth regime rendezvous and proximity operations

Next-generation space activities, where companies and organizations begin to provide services for each others space assets, are real and coming on-line. The Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations (CONFERS) is an industry-led initiative meant to help enable new companies and industries in pursuit of on-orbit servicing (OOS) through metrics and standard developments. The University of Southern California’s (USC) Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) is chartered to examine past and present activities related to this new domain and uncover elements that might benefit from the application of standards or practices for the industry as a whole. This paper will 1) review and update USC’s initial technical rendezvous metrics, and 2) introduce OOS functional evaluations and an initial ontology for consideration.