Small Integrated Navigator for PLanetary EXploration (SINPLEX)

Abstract

SINPLEX is an EC funded research and development project. Its main goal is to develop an innovative solution to significantly reduce the mass of the navigation subsystem for exploration missions which include a landing and/or a rendezvous and capture phase. The project aims to increase the scientific return of exploration missions, enable new types of missions and targets and reduce launch cost and travel time. Future space exploration missions target asteroids, comets, planets and planetary moons. They will send robotic vehicles to these targets and provide the capability to return samples to Earth. For all space mission (and especially these kinds of missions) mass is one of the most critical factors. Thus, reducing the mass of components or complete subsystems of an exploration vehicle is a key enabling factor for the future exploration of our solar system and beyond. Mass is reduced while still allowing good navigation performance. This is accomplished by functionally integrating the different sensors, utilizing micro- and nano-technologies for compacting electronics and using sensor hybridization approaches to improve the performance of the complete navigation subsystem. The project objectives are: to develop an integrated novel navigation subsystem architecture, to produce a breadboard system and to demonstrate the system’s performance for object relative robotic navigation for space applications. The presentation will provide an overview of the SINPLEX project including the current design and status.