Paper Category: Commercial
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Ensuring Orbital Safety from T-0: The Critical Imperative for Immediate Post-Launch Collision Avoidance
As the density of the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment increases, driven by frequent rideshare missions and the deployment of mega-constellations, the initial phase of satellite operations has emerged as a period of heightened orbital risk. Historically, collision avoidance (COLA) processes have relied on established tracking by Space Situational Awareness (SSA) providers. However, this study…
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Enabling Secure Maritime Connectivity: MAIV of the MICE-1 CubeSat Mission
The increasing reliance of Maritime IoT and Internet of Vessels (IoV) applications on satellite connectivity places stringent requirements not only on system architecture and communications performance, but also on the robustness, manufacturability, and verification of spaceborne platforms operating in demanding environments. In this context, nanosatellite missions targeting maritime services must balance tight mass, volume, and…
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WAVE-XS: Water-Based Micropropulsion for Smallsats
Europe’s rapid smallsat scaling is increasing demand for propulsion that is safe to handle, simple to integrate, and operationally useful across the full mission lifecycle—including collision-avoidance maneuvers and end-of-life deorbit. This paper presents WAVE-XS, a water-centered micropropulsion architecture for CubeSats and small spacecraft that uses stored liquid water as the only consumable and converts it…
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In-orbit validation of Oxford Space Systems Deployable Wrapped Rib Antenna (WRA)
Oxford Space Systems (OSS) has achieved significant advancements in space deployable antennas, enabling small-satellite constellations through their low mass, low launch volume and high RF performance. Launched in January 2026 on a Falcon 9 rocket, OSS have collaborated with SSTL on the CarbSAR mission to successfully demonstrate and validate the technology of the innovative deployable…
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Agile Earth Observation Under Operational Constraints: CMG vs Reaction-Wheel ACS
As small commercial Earth Observation constellations expand, operators strive to collect more data and increase value per spacecraft while maintaining low costs and deployment times. In this context, spacecraft agility is often overlooked in constellation design: how quickly a satellite can rotate and then meet pointing requirements largely sets how many targets it can image…
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Unlocking Orbit: Commercializing ISS-Validated Systems
The International Space Station (ISS) has long served as the ultimate proving ground for spaceborne innovation by offering a unique environment for testing in microgravity. However, the true potential of emerging space technologies is only realized when they transition from the safety of a crewed testbed to the rigors of an independent, full-scale in-orbit demonstration.…
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Low SWaP Flight Board for High-Speed On-Board Data Handling, Processing and AI Inference
The continuous increase in payload data volume and mission autonomy requirements is driving the need for increasingly advanced on-board data handling and processing technologies in satellite systems. In particular, next-generation Earth observation, telecommunications, and distributed space architectures require high-performance processing capabilities to enable real-time data reduction, intelligent decision-making, and efficient use of downlink resources. Within…
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High-Agile Spacecraft with Flexible Appendages: Limits, Risks, and Mitigation
Modern Earth-observation missions increasingly rely on high-agility retargeting to maximise target acquisitions. At the same time, new-generation spacecraft are adopting larger, lightweight, and lightly damped appendages such as high-power solar arrays and deployable SAR antennas, which introduce low-frequency flexible dynamics and tighter slew-and-settle constraints. The combined trend raises a central question for mission design: how…
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High-Speed Optical Communications for CubeSats: End-to-End Terminal Demonstration and BER Performance Characterisation
Free-space optical communication (FSOC) is increasingly considered for small satellites because it can provide significantly higher data rates than RF while remaining compatible with strict size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. This capability is attractive for Earth-observation and science missions where downlink volume is a limiting factor. Despite this potential, CubeSat-class optical terminals are challenging…
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Shining a spotlight on maritime dark traffic
The ability to support Maritime Domain Awareness from space using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been successfully demonstrated in the past, however practical challenges in achieving the necessary area coverage, temporal coverage and spatial resolution for a practical system has eluded wider adoption. Yet demand for Maritime Surveillance has increased in recent years, to protect…