Cross-border exchange of spacecraft data for the safe and efficient execution of space activities

Kurzfassung

The integration of space operations into the existing air transport system is becoming increasingly important. The basis for safe and efficient aerospace operations can be an automatic exchange of mission-specific data between all parties involved. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Office of Commercial Space Transportation of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are jointly researching what data must be explicitly exchanged between spacecraft operators and air traffic management (ATM) entities, such as air navigation service providers (ANSPs), before, during and after a launch or re-entry. This is intended to provide better situational awareness and increase responsiveness to deviant events. Using simulated space launches, with both nominal and non-nominal trajectory trajectories, from Cape Canaveral (USA) and Kourou (French Guiana), DLR and the FAA have successfully demonstrated cross-border spacecraft data sharing. On each side of the Atlantic, the data received was processed in real time and visualized on the DLR Space Operations Dashboard (SOD) and the FAA Space Data Integrator (SDI). This allowed the data to be quickly acquired in each situation and the appropriate actions to be taken in the event of non-nominal events. The demonstrations were used to show a possible process for integrating commercial spaceflight into the air transportation system. A procedure that can also be applied when payloads are launched into orbit from European spaceports.