C3S has been selected as prime contractor for Flotta, a project by the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop a new 50-150 kg microsatellite platform and the production architecture required for repeatable, manufacturing and deployment at the scale of large constellations with more than 100 satellites.
Flotta addresses two key challenges of large satellite constellations: producing spacecraft efficiently at significantly higher volumes while meeting increasingly stringent space debris mitigation requirements.
The project will develop the spacecraft structure and core avionics together with a manufacturing approach designed for series production.
Manufacturability, integration, testing and deployment will be considered from the outset to enable programmes involving hundreds of spacecrafts without compromising reliability.
Gyula Horváth, CEO and owner of C3S, said: “The challenge with Flotta is to design the spacecraft, its production system and its deployment concept for a fundamentally different scale.
“At volumes of hundreds, manufacturability, integration and testing have to be designed into the platform from the beginning.
“The hundredth spacecraft has to meet the same standards as the first. For C3S, Flotta is about turning more than a decade of spacecraft engineering experience into a platform architecture built for constellation-scale production and deployment.
“This capability will enable C3S to potentially supply spacecraft for programmes such as IRIS² and other constellation-based missions.”
Space debris compliance is a core requirement of Flotta. The design will address reliable end-of-life deorbiting and passivation, demisability, trackability and collision avoidance in line with ESA space debris requirements.
The activity is carried out under the Industrial Competitiveness programme, within ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) programme.
C3S, which is a Hungarian company, leads the project from system requirements and architecture through detailed design, implementation and verification. HPS participates as a subcontractor, contributing expertise in deployable antenna solutions.
