ReDSHIFT: Revolutionary Design of Spacecraft through Holistic Integration of Future Technologies

ReDSHIFT will address barriers to compliance for spacecraft manufacturers and operators represented by requirements and technologies for de-orbiting and disposal of space objects. This will beachieved through a holistic approach that takes into account opposing and challenging constraints for the safety of the human population, when debris objects re-enter the atmosphere, designed fordemise, and for their survivability in the harsh space environment, while on orbit. ReDSHIFT will take advantage of disruptive opportunities offered by 3D printing to develop highly innovative, low-cost spacecraft solutions, exploiting synergies with electric propulsion, atmosphericand solar radiation pressure drag, and astrodynamical highways, to meet de-orbit and disposal needs, but which are also designed for demise. RedShift will design structures to enhance spacecraft protection, by fracture along intended breakup planes, and re-entry demise characteristics. These structures will be subjected to functional tests as well as specific hypervelocity impact tests and material demise wind tunnel tests to demonstrate the capabilities of the 3D printed structures. At the same time, novel and complex technical, economicand legal issues of adapting the technologies to different vehicles, and implementing them widely across low Earth orbit will be tackled through the development of a hierarchical, web-based toolaimed at a variety of space actors. This will provide a complete debris mitigation analysis of a mission, using existing debris evolution models and lessons learned from theoretical and experimentalwork. It will output safe, scalable and cost-effective satellite and mission designs in response to operational constraints. Through its activities, ReDSHIFT will recommend new space debris mitigationguidelines taking into account novel spacecraft designs, materials, manufacturing and mission solutions.