SCIENTIFIC & PLANETARY INSTRUMENTS
ISRU
ISRU Demonstrator Payload is aimed for the extraction of oxygen from lunar regolith on lunar surface. The experiments were conducted by OHB Italia S.p.A. as Prime Contractor and the Politecnico di Milano in the frame of the In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) Demonstration Mission, a program of and funded by ESA, the European Space Agency, with the strong support of ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana).
The system powered with sand simulating polar lunar soil, produced the expected amount of water, extracting oxygen from the oxides present in the minerals of lunar surface. The thin layer of dusty sand that covers the Moon contains minerals that are also found on Earth, allowing the use of chemical transformation processes known from terrestrial industrial applications.
The ability to produce water in-situ and therefore oxygen and hydrogen, is a key step for future Moon’s human missions, as these are fundamental elements for sustaining the life for extended periods. This production capability also frees future lunar bases from the use of open-loop systems that require continuous refuelling from Earth, simplifying logistics and reducing the costs of transporting materials.
Under a programme of and funded by the European Space Agency. The view expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency
Solar Orbiter – METIS CORONOGRAPH
Solar Orbiter, the ESA/NASA Sun Explorer, was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral (Florida, USA) on February 2020.
Solar Orbiter is the first mission to operate in extreme environment up to 500C°, providing images of the poles of the Sun at high latitude and to study magnetic fields, solar wind and space weather, combining in-situ together with remote sensing observations.
The spacecraft has taken two years to reach the Sun: 42 Million kilometers at its closest approach. Solar Orbiter is equipped with ten cutting edge technological instruments.
One of these is the multi-wavelength coronagraph METIS (Multi Element Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy) developed by OHB Italia S.p.A. along with other partners. It is observing the structure and the dynamics of the full corona with unprecedented temporal coverage and spatial resolution. METIS employs broad-band, polarized and narrow-band imaging technology for screening the solar corona: a unique capability combining two different wavelength bands by means of a single telescope.
Under a programme of and funded by the European Space Agency. The view expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency
Succesfully launched on February 9th, 2020 |
LARES II
The LARES II System, the massive “sphere” to verify Einstein’s Relativity Theory, was developed by OHB Italia S.p.A. for the Italian Space Agency. The satellite was launched as the main payload of VEGA C maiden flight (as LARES I in 2012 with VEGA) on July 2022.
LARES II (LAser RElativity Satellite), is a passive satellite, composed of a high-density nickel alloy sphere of 424mm (diameter) and weighing about 300kg, on which 303 retroreflectors are installed.
A key element of the LARES II System is the non-conventional retaining mechanism assembly that kept the spheric satellite locked during launch (without damaging the perfect spherical shape) and released it once in orbit.
The LARES II mission is now operational and is allowing a very precise measurement of the gravitomagnetic field (Lense-Thirring effect), predicted by the general relativity theory.
Activity carried out under ASI contract.
Succesfully lauched on July 13th, 2022 |
ASIM / ISS External Payload
The ESA-European Space Agency mission ASIM (Atmosphere Space Interactions Monitor) was successfully launched on 2nd April 2018 on board of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida (USA).
ASIM is an observatory mounted outside the International Space Station (ISS) on the European Columbus module. Its target is to study electrical discharges and transient luminous events above severe thunderstorms in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and to monitor X-ray and gamma-ray flashes. OHB Italia responsibilities were system integration and validation, software development and data handling & power distribution.
Originally designed for 2 years lifetime, ASIM has been a success, collecting data on storms for almost 4 years. On January 10th, 2022 ASIM was relocated to another spot outside the Space Station by a robotic arm.
The new position provided new important data for ASIM scientists. Storms will now be studied from a new perspective, more towards the horizon.
Under a programme of and funded by the European Space Agency. The view expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency
Succesfully launched on April 2nd, 2018 |
LISA MISSION
LISA is one of the large-class missions under ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. It will be the first space-based observatory dedicated to studying gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time emitted during the most powerful events in the Universe, such as pairs of black holes coming together and merging, just to investigate the entire history of the Universe using similar waves.
OHB Italia S.p.A., on behalf of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), will be the industrial architect responsible of the so-called GRS, Gravitational Reference System, which is the “golden heart” of the mission. Th GRS purpose is to ensure that a 2kg Gold-Platinum cubical mass can be released as a free-falling object in Space, undisturbed by any possible external influence, and very precisely controlled in its behaviour, in order to identify the influence of gravitational waves down to sub-Hertz frequencies, a bandwidth previously impossible to study using any ground interferometric experiment.
Activity carried out under ASI contract.
Under a programme of and funded by the European Space Agency. The view expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency
Succesfully launched on December, 3rd 2015 |
EUCLID
It is a mission of the European Space Agency to map the geometry of the Universe and better understand the mysterious dark matter and dark energy.
OHB Italia S.p.A. gave a strong contribution by designing and manufacturing the electronic units of two main instruments that represent the “brain” of the system, the VIS (visual imager, a visible-wavelength camera) and the NISP (near-infrared spectrometer and photometer) to scan the deep space through a 1.2m diameter telescope and moreover the grism wheel assembly of the NISP instrument.
Activity carried out under ASI contract.
Succesfully launched on July, 1st 2023 |
IXPE
It is a NASA mission. The challenging target of IXPE is observing the universe at high energies and measuring the polarisation in X-rays emitted by large cosmic sources such as supernovas, black holes and pulsars. OHB Italia S.p.A. developed fundamental parts of the satellite: the Detector Unit Electronics (BEE), the so-called Filter and Calibration Wheel Mechanism and the Detector Service Unit (DSU).
The satellite, successfully launched in December 2021, is analyzing celestial objects presenting extreme magnetic-gravitational fields with a detail never seen before to determine the angles and degrees point sources’ polarisation.
Activity carried out under ASI contract.
Succesfully lauched on December 9th, 2021 |