PRISMA mission

PRISMA is a "technology in-orbit testbed mission" for demonstrating formation flying and rendezvous technologies, as well as flight testing of sensor and actuator technologies.

The Prisma mission primary goals are technology demonstrations and manoeuvre experiments containing GNC and sensor technology for a family of future missions where RV and/or FF must be utilized. The demonstrations are: GNC manoeuvring experiments with high level of autonomy containing: Autonomous Formation Flying, Homing and Rendezvous, Proximity Operations and Final Approach and Recede Operation. The experiments are run mainly by SSC with important contributions from DLR. GPS-based navigation system experiment from DLR, which shall evaluate real-time differential GPS as sensor for autonomous formation flying. Vision Based Sensor (VBS) based on a star camera, to be evaluated as a multi-range range tracking and RVD sensor. A demonstration flight test of the Formation Flying Radio Frequency package (FFRF) considered for Darwin. As secondary goals, the Prisma mission also has a set of drivers originating from the Swedish national space programme where different developments in platform technology have been undertaken. These are:

Guidance Navigation Controle (GNC) operational modes

The High Performance Green Propellant (HPGP) 1-N motor system developed by jointly by SSC, Volvo Aero and FOI (Swedish defence research organisation). This is an ESA-supported development of a non-toxic propulsion system with equal performance as Hydrazine.
Further development of core functions of the System Unit flown in the Smart-1 mission (developed by SSC) and the Power distribution and battery handling units flown in the Smart-1 mission (developed by Omnisys in Gothenburg).
New Onboard Software development, where the utilization of Matlab/Simulink and autocode generation (successfully employed on Smart-1 application cores) are developed to envelope the whole Data Handling layer.
Development of a PUS and CCSDS compatible Ground Support Equipment both for test and operations, with a flexible infrastructure supporting multi-satellite operations.
The Micro System Technology cold gas thrusters under development by Nanospace AB.