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A TDE funded activity, led by Airbus Defence and Space (UK) with the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (France), designed an integrated framework for co-designing planetary spacecraft with large flexible appendages. The objective of this framework is to minimise the spacecraft mass while simultaneously satisfying the AOCS requirements.
ENVISION, from the Science Directorate, was used as a comparative benchmark test case. The spacecraft has fine pointing requirements, with many flexible appendages (solar arrays, synthetic aperture radar, subsurface radar antenna). The implementation of either a direct or iterative co-design showed successful optimisation of the spacecraft total mass – reducing the total spacecraft mass by 42 kg – while being able to satisfy the mission and spacecraft performance requirements.
The image shows the ENVISION spacecraft, highlighting the structural parameters considered in the co-design optimisation process.