Geostationary satellites carry our TV channels, weather monitoring and communications (and military observations), and are a vital resource as we develop space technologies. Their altitude of 36000km has always suggested that the effects of debris would be small. However, in the last few months 2 geostationary satellites have literally broken apart. Furthermore, as spacecraft at GEO are too distant to de-orbit, towards the end of their operational lifetimes they are ejected out of the GEO into the so-called graveyard orbits. Here they are literally turned off and left to age. What happens to them past this point is conjecture: it is expected that they age and given the hostile space environment this itself could lead to breakup. However we are starting to expect that these spacecraft can be differentially acted upon by the solar wind, hence causing the spacecraft to start spinning. On a short timescale this could also lead to breakup. This proposal is about identifying the constitution of the debris field at GEO and also studying the effects of radiation field on the state of elderly satellites.

The UK has a world class reputation for design and manufacture of space based technologies. A new National Space Academy has been launched this year to help boost the size and quality of the UK's science and engineering expertise. The proposal supports strongly The UK Space Directory, an organisation of eight groups representing and supporting the UK space community and including the Technology Strategy Board that state "the UK Space Industry has come together to propose an ambitious 20 year strategy to capture 10% of the global space market, £40 billion, by 2030 and in doing so create 100,000 UK jobs". The UK houses some of the leading companies in space applications such as; Inmarsat, Rolls Royce, Logica, Vega Space, Astrium, Qioptiq Space Technology and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited. The latter two companies strongly back the research detailed within this proposal and have both provided satements of support. This proposal seeks to offer an alternative PV technology for large area arrays and to be the first to report thin film cadmium telluride (CdTe) deposited directly onto toughened cerium-doped microsheet glass (CMG), explicitly targeting a significant increase in specific power by a step-change reduction of system weight. The Qioptiq Space Technology CMG microsheet glass is optimised to match the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of gallium arsenide (GaAs) based space solar cells. With the CdTe CTE almost identical to that of GaAs the choice of CMG is ideal for the prevention of delamination under the severe thermal gradients to which space PV is exposed. This adventurous approach, using the CMG as both the radiation barrier and substrate, will be proven by characterisation of 5 x 5 cm2 deposited devices and finally scaled to 10 x 20 cm2 on the Centre for Solar Energy Research (CSER) pilot metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) system. This proposal has the content and vision to make a significant contribution to the UK's flourishing space industry. Key to the success of the project will be the dissemination and pathways to impact of the research outcomes; this will be ensured through regular reporting to and feedback from a steering group of potential exploiters-Industrial experts and through targeted press releases. This proposal offers UK research the chance to impact the space PV market either through licencing of the arising IP and more excitingly in the current economic climate through manufacture of the final product.

Deployable flexible strips resembling carpenters' tape measures have been used to deploy and support devices such as antennas and solar panels for some time. These curved strips are often referred to as "booms", especially when they also act as structural members. Perhaps the most famous example was the Viking Lander soil collection arm, which could be reeled up or extended as required. These booms are usually constructed from thin curved sheets of metal, or laminates of fibre reinforced polymer. Some of these booms possess the property of "bistability", which means they do not need to be constrained once they have been coiled up. Flexible deployable booms have found other uses in deploying antennas and imaging systems on the battlefield, inserting monitoring equipment into nuclear power plants, deploying a flexible solar array from the International Space Station (ROSA experiment), and very recently in forming the masts of the InflateSail drag deorbiting sail: the first European sail to be deployed in space, and one of the first successful demonstrations of orbital debris removal technology. These booms have several advantages over deployable systems consisting of rigid links joined by hinges or sliders, including simplicity, a very small number of moving parts, and they often can be made to be very lightweight. However, two main limitations of these flexible booms are that the vast majority to those developed to date only deploy in a straight line, and that the exact geometry and deployed length of boom cannot be very accurately controlled. Recently, versions of these deployable booms that are not only curved in one direction (like a tape measure), but have "double curvature" have started to be studied in earnest. These booms can be deployed into a whole array of new shapes such as parabolas, a torus, and even helices. This opens up a number of new possible applications, such as lightweight deployable parabolic dishes, large tent supports, and as active elements in directional antennas. In our project, we will accelerate the technology readiness level (TRL) of this technology by developing the design and modelling tools required to work with doubly-curved deployable flexible booms (focussing mainly on fibre reinforced laminate materials), and improving the manufacturing methods and deployment mechanisms in an effort to make booms with the necessary geometric precision and dimensional stability to be used in RF and optical systems. To design these highly constrained flexible structures we will be adapting a very powerful equation solving technique called polynomial continuation to seek out the perfect laminate fibre angles and thicknesses to get the mechanical behaviour required. To model the behaviour of the booms we will be generating novel energy methods to predict coiled and deployed shapes, building on methods we have already developed in this field. To motivate the development of these technologies, the University of Surrey is partnering with Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and RolaTube Technology Ltd. (RTL) to build two new devices making use of curved flexible deployable booms. With RTL we are constructing a directional helical antenna that unwinds from a small motorised hub, deploying its own ground plane at the same time. With SSTL we are developing a novel Earth imaging telescope barrel consisting of multiple curved strips which deploy simultaneously to form the outer barrel. The telescope strip is an especially interesting device because it requires a single curvature in the deployed state where it forms part of the barrel of the telescope, but quite a complicated double curvature when coiled into a ring around the base of the telescope.

Future intelligent, autonomous platforms (autonomous vehicles, robots, satellites, ships, air planes) and portable terminals are expected to have multiple functions such as wireless communication (with satellites and/or terrestrial base stations and/or ground terminals), ultra-fast data transfer, navigation, sensing, radars, imaging and wireless power transfer. These wireless systems operate at various frequencies. As a single radio frequency (RF) system usually has a narrow bandwidth, multiple RF systems at different frequency bands are often employed, leading to a huge increase in the volume, power consumption and cost. To address this need, it requires a single-aperture ultra-wideband (UWB) phased array capable of operating over an extremely wide range of frequencies, and having a low profile, wide-angle-scanning steerable beams, high gain, high efficiency and multiple polarizations (e.g. right-hand circular polarization for navigation, dual linear polarizations for mobile communication). Such an advanced antenna system does not exist yet. This project aims to tackle the ambitious challenges of addressing this need. This multi-disciplinary research consortium, having RF/microwave/mm-wave phased array researchers working together with researchers in optical beamforming and 3D printing, are ideally placed to development a new generation of low-profile UWB phased arrays, which is expected to find wide uses for both civilian and military applications.

Advances in robotics and autonomous systems are changing the way space is explored in ever more fundamental ways. Both human and scientific exploration missions are impacted by these developments. Where human exploration is concerned, robots act as proxy explorers: deploying infrastructure for human arrival, assisting human crews during in-space operations, and managing assets left behind. As humans extend their reach into space, they will increasingly rely on robots enabled by artificial intelligence to handle many support functions and repetitive tasks, allowing crews to apply themselves to problems that call for human cognition and judgment. Where scientific exploration is concerned, robotic spacecraft will continue to go out into Earth orbit and the far reaches of deep space, venturing to remote and hostile worlds, and returning valuable samples and data for scientific analysis. The aim of FAIR-SPACE is to go beyond the-state-of-the-art in robotic sensing and perception, mobility and manipulation, on-board and on-ground autonomous capabilities, and human-robot interaction, to enable space robots to perform more complex tasks on long-duration missions with minimal dependence on ground crew. More intelligent and dexterous robots will be more self-sufficient, being able to detect and respond to anomalies on board autonomously and requiring far less teleoperation. The research will see novel technologies being developed for robotic platforms used in orbit or on planet surfaces, namely: future on-orbit robots tasked with repairing satellites, assembling large space telescopes, manufacturing in space, removal of space junk; and future surface robots, also known as planetary rovers, for surveying, observation, extraction of resources, and deploying infrastructure for human arrival and habitation; a further case study will target human-robot interoperability aboard the International Space Station. The research will merge the best available off-the-shelf hardware and software solutions with trail-blazing innovations and new standards and frameworks, aiming at the development of a constellation of space robotics prototypes and tools. This aims to accelerate the prototyping of autonomous systems in a scalable way, where the innovations and methodologies developed can be rapidly spun out for wide adoption in the space sector worldwide. FAIR-SPACE directly addresses two of the priorities in the Industrial Strategy Green Paper: robotics & artificial intelligence and satellite & space technologies. The clear commitment offered by the industrial partners demonstrates the need for establishing a national asset that will help translate academic outputs into innovative products/services. Our impact plan will ensure we can maximise co-working with user organisations, align our work with other programmes (e.g. InnovateUK) and effectively transfer our research outputs and technology to other sectors beyond space such as nuclear, deep mining and offshore energy. FAIR-SPACE will therefore not only help in wealth creation but also help develop a robotics UK community with a leading international profile.