Heritage

The technical objective of this activity is to improve various tools that are currently used for magnetic cleanliness applications both for DC and AC magnetic field measurements. This includes modifications to the Suitcase Multi-Magnetometer Facility developed in the frame of AO/1-8770/16/NL/SC so as to be adapted to current proto-MMF facility (today installed at ESTEC labs) and manufacturing of four (4) Magnetic Field Measurement Heads (SMS-DAQ/MAG) units to be delivered to the Agency.
Another objective is to upgrade current software tools used for data acquisition and modelling purposes in proto-MMF in order to perform AC measurements but also to interface with AC modelling tools towards a unified software application for DC and AC magnetic field measurements in proto-MMF and S-MMF. The activity also includes the development of a new algorithm to define the magnetometers positions of proto-MMF based on known magnetic field.
Principal objective is also to integrate all the above separate improvements and validate their operation and performance. In this way we expect to provide flexibility to EMC engineers to perform DC and AC magnetic field measurements in EUTs using common tools, both hardware and software.

Customer: ESA/ESTEC – European Space Research and Technology Centre
Prime Contractor: EMTECH SPACE P.C (CY) Ltd.

DC Magnetic cleanliness is one of the most important applications employing an accurate prediction of any EUT’s magnetic behaviour. In addition, several space missions, such as the European Space Agency (ESA) Solar Orbiter mission, intend to make AC magnetic field measurements. Since these measurements require high accuracy and precision, it is extremely important to take place at “magnetically clean” environments, free of spacecraft noise at the deployed sensor locations. Further missions with similar cleanliness requirements are JUICE and THOR.
The current activity is driven by the need of more accurate and efficient magnetic field testing of spacecraft equipment/units, having also major flexibility in installation and carriage of the testing equipment for magnetic cleanliness applications.
The principal objective is to design and develop a portable and lightweight measurement system for magnetic field measurements regarding magnetic cleanliness applications. The system will fit within a carry-on suitcase and provide flexibility for EMC engineers to carry the system easily everywhere and perform DC and AC magnetic field measurements in EUTs, payloads or even small size spacecraft. The system will support synchronous measurement acquisition to reduce noise and modern tools to define magnetometers positions in the measurement area.

Customer: ESA/ESTEC – European Space Research and Technology Centre
Prime Contractor: EMTECH SPACE P.C (CY) Ltd.

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SpaceWire (SpW) data distribution protocol for connecting instruments, mass-memory, processors, downlink telemetry, and other on-board sub-systems became an ideal solution for many space missions in terms of speed, power, simplicity, implementation costs and architectural flexibility.
PLATO (Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) was the Cosmic Vision M3 mission, selected by the ESA Science Programme Committee for launch within 2024. In this spacecraft, high speed digital data links such as SpaceWire (SpW) are implemented over insulating panels made from a ceramic material (CFRP) to reduce the mass, which is an almost perfect insulator. The adopted grounding strategies play an essential role in controlling common mode current and minimizing EMI, being essential to minimize the common mode impedance.
EMTech, based on its background and experience, analyzed the requirements of the Optical Bench harness and grounding design of the PLATO spacecraft and developed the required EMI test plans to assess the proposed, CFRP based, grounding strategies. EMTech executed the characterization tests (radiated E-field measurements on SpW lines) to identify the behavior of various grounding strategies based on CFRP. Beside testing results, models of the examined grounding strategies for SpW links were also provided.

Customer: Thales Alenia Space Italia S.p.A. (TAS-I) – Italy
Prime Contractor: EMTECH SPACE P.C.
Sub-Contractors: National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

The need for “magnetically clean spacecraft” was the motivation for this study. The spacecraft residual magnetism should be kept below requirements determined by the scientific application and commensurate with the sensitivity (resolution) of on-board magnetometers. The study was driven by the need of more accurate and efficient testing of spacecraft equipment/units to provide a better estimation of the residual spacecraft magnetic field using MDM (Magnetic Dipole Modelling) techniques which are further optimized by the use of deterministic and randomized methods.
The output of this activity is a measurement facility capable of fast and accurate measurement of DC magnetic fields form spacecraft payload equipment. This was achieved through an extended study of several possible multi-magnetometer setups to perform “snapshot” measurement of EUT. The measurement facility employs a mechanical support system to host the magnetometers and the EUT, a data acquisition system and a sophisticated software tool which is integrated to the prototype facility and incorporates all necessary functionality to execute the measurement procedure. The software also interfaces properly with the MDM solver towards finding the minimum number of magnetic sources capable to reproduce the measured magnetic signature.

Customer: ESA/ESTEC – European Space Research and Technology Centre
Prime Contractor: EMTECH SPACE P.C.
Sub-Contractors: National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)