Near the close of two intense days at Mission-K in Kalkar, Torsten Kriening speaks with Natascha McVeigh, Senior Mission Manager at Shield Space, about autonomous operations in orbit and what it takes for a satellite to protect itself.
Shield Space focuses on autonomous RPO – rendezvous and proximity operations – and space control. The company is based in the United Kingdom and is now expanding into Germany. Its founders come from UK Space Command, and McVeigh notes that an increasing number of people with that background are joining the organisation.
Asked to explain what autonomous RPO means in practice, McVeigh outlines the company’s first mission. Partnering with Endurus, Shield Space will send up CubeSats together with a mothership next year, with the objective of demonstrating autonomous rendezvous at a distance of 100 metres – a capability not previously demonstrated in Europe. The spacecraft are cooperative and well defined, launching together before separating and then rendezvousing again, with the manoeuvre conducted autonomously.
Looking further ahead, she describes a subsequent mission built around a mothership, swarm technology and interceptors designed to guard a satellite, incorporating a self-protection system.
The rationale behind the work is clear. The aim, McVeigh explains, is to give operators genuine freedom to manoeuvre their spacecraft. When ground control is lost, continuing a mission requires autonomy at the spacecraft end. And in the event of an active attack, the ambition is for the spacecraft to be able to defend itself and continue its mission regardless – the central reason behind the company’s approach.
Fittingly for Mission-K, a live rocket test could be heard firing in the background during the conversation.
