63nd International Astronautical Congress, Naples, IT. Copyright 2012 by Dr. L. Summerer. Published by the IAF, with permission and released to the IAF to publish in all forms.
IAC-12.D4.1.2
THINKING TOMORROW
L. Summerer
ESA Advanced Concepts Team, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 Noordwijk, The Netherlands, Leopold.Summerer@esa.int
Abstract
This paper presents technological and conceptual visions beyond the traditional planning horizon of space agencies. It relies on
the research and reflections within the larger advanced concepts research community created by and around the European Space
Agency’s Advanced Concepts Team as well as the results of a two-day long symposium in July 2012, including Europe’s first space
un-conference, focussed on re-thinking the future of space beyond the traditional thought boundaries of the space sector.
For this purpose it reviews visions and expectations formulated at the creation of the ACT, results obtained and fundamental
changes that are expected to shape space activities and the space sector in a 10-15+ years time frame, while relaying these to
ongoing concrete research activities.
Keywords: future, technology trends, advanced research topics
1. INTRODUCTION
The Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) of the European Space
Agency (ESA) was created in 2002 with the mission to “monitor, perform and foster research on advanced space systems,
innovative concepts and working methods”. [1–3] As part of its
task, the team delivers to ESA rigorous and rapid assessments
of advanced concepts not necessarily yet linked to space.
We refer to a previous publication for a more detailed assessment of the methodology and approach of the ACT to perform
this task, specifically in contributing to the preparation of ESA
for potentially disruptive information. [2]
1.1. Contribution to long-term visions of and for the space sector
The formulation of the mission of the ACT is focussed on the
means to achieve a goal, rather than on the goals and objectives
themselves. It was created in 2002 within the then ESA directorate of Strategy and External Relations, tasked to “proposing
the overall strategy and long-term vision of the Agency including, inter alia, ESA-wide policies relevant to the European strategy for space, advanced concepts, relations with ESA Member
States, the EU and non-member States, and communication.”[4]
The team reported within this directorate to the head of the
‘Advanced Concepts and Studies Office’, responsible for “outlining, in coordination with the Agencys other directorates, a
programmatic and technical long-term vision of the Agencys
future development”. [4] The internal organisational location
of the team has changed several times, though always remaining attached to the organisational unit preparing the future of
ESA, by providing input into the strategy formulation process.
In 2012, the team is located within the Future Preparation and
Strategic Studies Office.
IAC-12.D4.1.2
While referring to earlier publications for the methods and
processes employed, the present paper analyses the results the
team has achieved in identifying early on upcoming research
areas and injecting these into the process that leads to the outlining of programmatic and technical long-term visions. [2, 3]
The time horizon of the team’s work is not provided in numbers of years but is defined relative to the horizon of all other
ESA programmes and projects, by requiring the topics to be
one step ahead. Their ‘golden rule’ is: if anybody else within
ESA starts working on concepts and technologies addressed by
the team, the team hands these topics over and moves on to new
ones. This leads naturally to contributing to the formulation of
an outline of a programmatic and long-term vision and to the
injection of research topics and projects related to such visions
into the main R&D progress of ESA.
The process to derive a vision in general needs to consider
two key input types: feasability, the analysis of what is possible within the timeframe of the elaborated vision and desirability, the understanding how beneficial attaining a certain vision
would be for the organisation. The role of the ACT is to contribute to the first input to the process of formulating a vision.
By exploring currently un-chartered research domains and exploring with small research projects those topics which are still
outside of the traditional planning horizon of the space sector,
it attempts to provide information what type of concepts, technologies and scientific advances could be included in analysing
the possible strategic options for the organisation.
Such a solid process is even the more important for sectors such as space, given the strong technological orientation
of space projects and the relatively long lead times before new
concepts and technologies can be used in space missions. [5–7]
1.2. Means
The first question intends to assess whether the team acts as
a pathfinder. If this were the case, there need to be areas of
research in which the team made research contributions and addressed potentially space-relevant aspects, when these were not
yet included in the scope of activities of the space sector, and
have later entered into the mainstream space R&D activities.
The second question in conditional on a positive answer and
expands on the first. It is a natural follow-up question to address the trends in more recent ACT research in order to derive
from these indicators for topics still to be transitioned into the
mainstream space sector.
The ACT operates at an average annual funding of about
e 1M, provided entirely by the ESA General Studies Programme. [8] This figure includes its internal costs plus overheads (e.g. in form of salaries for its researchers) as well as
external research grants, and thus varies slightly from year to
year, depending on the number of studies and the number of
internal researchers. [2]
External research grants of the ACT are performed within
the Ariadna scheme, a mechanism for collaborative research
between ACT and university researchers, with three distinct
funding levels from small e 15k exploratory studies to e 35k
extended studies.
These three Ariadna study types are not associated in any
way to a progressing sequence, but instead are one-off studies
with no follow-up studies within the Ariadna scheme, nor institutional pathways for follow-up activities within ESA. The
types of studies are defined by the ACT depending on estimates
on how much time and effort would be required for the planned
research.
In its function as an internal think-tank, the ACT attempts
identifying trends, new research advances and events that have
the potential to impact the future of space and describe these in
form of reports. [9]
As part of this task, the team organises workshops on advanced concepts related to space. Such workshops were held at
ESTEC, the scientific and technical centre of ESA in 2006, in
2008 and in 2012. [10]
Section 3.3 reports on the evolution of topics identified at
these occasions regarding the scientific and technical research
domains and trends that would be of importance for the European space sector to investigate more closely.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. Data sources
The analysis presented in this paper is based on documents
produced by the Advanced Concepts Team between 2002 and
2012. It specifically relies on four main data sources:
1. scientific publications of the team;
2. Ariadna study reports of the team;
3. proceedings of the advanced concepts workshops periodically organised by the team; and
4. scientific disciplines represented by the researchers in the
team.
All four main data sources are publicly available on the main
website of the team. Data sources 1-2 are available in form of
fully searchable semantic databases. The proceedings of the
different advanced concepts workshops are available online in
form of pdf documents and for some in form of videos of the
presentations given. The scientific disciplines are available in
form of the short profiles attached to the ACT researchers on
the timeline available on the public website of the team.
Information related to follow-up projects and activities after
Ariadna studies is taken from an internal database maintained
by the researchers in the team and about to be put into a publicly
available publication.
The analysis of the data is not made at the individual study
topic level, but at aggregated research area level to allow trends
to be come apparent. Study topics have therefore been grouped
under umbrella headings, which are not strictly defined either
in this paper nor in the scholarly literature, but considered sufficient to derive tendencies, understand the evolution and emergence of new areas.
The use of this classification also bears risks specific to the
analysis of the research of the Advanced Concepts Team since
most subject areas are touching two and sometimes even more
disciplines. In order to avoid oversimplifications, the analysis
will include study topic level information whenever necessary.
The analysis of the data of the Ariadna research projects also
needs to take into account the internal evolution of this scheme
for collaborative research. It started with bigger call for proposals per year, each call containing more than five study topics,
which tended to be conducted in parallel studies. The scheme
then changed in 2009, to introduce smaller but more frequent
1.3. Research questions
Even though the team’s time horizon is not fixed in absolute
terms but related in relative terms to the planning horizon of
regular programmes of ESA, ten years represent roughly the
of average planning limit of most ESA R&D activities. The
research question addressed by the present paper is taking the
occasion of ten years of existence of the ACT.
The main research question addressed by the present paper
assesses whether the research directions of the team and the
results it has obtained in the first 10 years of its existence substantiate the claim that the process described in [2] is effective
in helping the team to achieve its task to contribute to the preparation of the future of ESA and the European space sector?
In order to address this question, it is divided into two more
specific questions, which can be addressed by analysing publicly available data:
1. Are there research topics that have emerged at the ACT
and transitioned to mainstream space?
2. How the research focus of the ACT and its larger research
network evolved during the first ten years of operations of
the team?
2
calls, with more substantial internal research before launching
Ariadna studies and the introduction of Ariadna call for ideas
studies. [3] This change has also resulted in an overall reduction of the number of Ariadna studies conducted per year from
its maximum of 16 studies in 2006 to the minimum of only 3 in
2010.
Researcher durations inside the team are counted in manmonths. The standard durations of post-graduate researchers
and post-doc researchers are 12 and 24 months respectively.
The presented sums are however not always divisible by 12 or
24 due to some exceptional extensions and early departures.
In order to allow an easy verification, the present paper contains more referenced publications than tend to be included
in standard scholarly work, including links to their online full
electronic versions.
Figure 1: Evolution of the research focus areas of ACT post-doc level researchers in relative terms.
2.2. Limitations
The present paper aims at extracting relevant data to answer the key research questions formulated in section 1.3 by
analysing only quantitative information sources. This process
does not recognise the many informal, unstructured pathways
of information and insight that occur in the process of formulating opinions. Szajnfarber and Weigel have recently shown
the importance of such personal, largely informal and unstructured information exchanges to the R&D and innovation processes. [5, 6] It is reasonable to assume that similar processes
play an important role also in the formulation of organisational
visions and strategy processes.
3. RESEARCH TOPIC TRENDS
Figure 2: Evolution of the research focus areas of ACT post-doc level researchers in absolute terms.
3.1. Evolution of the competence base in terms of research areas
The ACT relies to a large extent on the insights and competence of it’s in-house researchers, at post-doc and post-graduate
levels and their dynamic, interdisciplinary discussions on current ‘hot’, potentially important research topics. Decisions on
the evolution of the competence base of the team are reflecting the insights of its members when such decisions are taken
and the expectations of the team’s management about important
topics to be explored by the team.
Fig. 1 shows the relative evolution of the competence basis of
the team’s core research basis, it’s post-doc researchers, while
Fig. 2 provides the absolute numbers in terms of man-months
per year. It shows that the team can be considered as being fully
operational from about 2004 onwards, coinciding also with the
start of the Ariadna programme scheme for collaborative research.
The data show that there are some core larger research areas
of the team, which have been initiated during the first years.
These are research fellows working in the general fields of mission analysis, biomimetics, and fundamental physics. All of
these have been present in the team in 10 out of the 11 years
from 2002 to 2012. These are followed by the field of mathematics and computer science (9 out of 11 years), artificial intelligence (8 out of 11 years)
Figure 3: Repartition of the disciplines of post-doc ACT researchers normalised
in man-months.
3
While there are exceptions and some time overlaps between
researchers of the same disciplines, usually only one to two researchers of one discipline are represented in the team at any
time. The total distribution of the team’s postdoc research
months therefore reflects the previous data: 20% for mission
analysis, 15% for fundamental physics, and 14% each for Mathematics & Computer Science and Biomimetics as displayed in
Fig. 3.
The analysis of the other research fields show the fade-out
of Planetary Protection research, and the emergence of the new
research areas for the team of Nanotechnology, Computational
Management Sciences and Climate Engineering & Earth System Sciences.
The picture gets completed when considering also the more
dynamic research disciplines of post-graduate researchers.
(Fig. 4 and 5) It shows that new fields are first explored at young
graduate level, before being studied at post-doc level. For example, the field of nanotechnology was covered in 2005 and
2006 at post-graduate level and at post-doctoral level from 2007
and 2009.
Figure 5: Evolution of the research focus areas of ACT post-graduate level
researchers in absolute terms.
that took place in the three main research fields of the team
during 2004 to 2012.
Figure 6: Evolution of the research areas of Ariadna studies in relative terms
between 2004 and 2012.
Figure 4: Evolution of the research focus areas of ACT post-graduate level
researchers in relative terms.
The field of mission analysis is therefore taken as an example to demonstrate the internal evolution of the ACT research in
the field and how much it has changed. In the first years, 2004
and 2005, the team’s research focussed on global optimisation
techniques, libration points and weak stability boundaries, invariant relative satellite motions for large constellations, the research conducted via Ariadna studies in the following years
from 2006 onwards focussed on the relatively different areas of
swarm satellites and the use of electrostatic forces for their formation control, centrifugal fragmentation of asteroids and the
dynamics of space web structures. [11–17][18–21][22–24] In
2008 the team also made three parallel studies following a call
for ideas on advanced asteroid deflection concepts, followed by
three studies two years later in a similar call for novel methods
to actively de-orbit space debris. [25–31]
This demonstrates that while the general area of advanced
global optimisation techniques has continued throughout (with
studies related to global optimisation techniques performed in
2004, 2007 and 2011, and kept vibrant also via the ACT initiated regular Global Trajectory Optimisation Competition), the
actual focus of the team’s research in the larger field of mission
analysis has changed substantially over time. [32, 33]
The analysis of the data for in-house post-graduate research
areas also reveals additional thematic explorations of the team,
such as the areas of bioengineering, introduced in 2007, neuroinformatics and computational management science, both introduced in 2008, Earth System Science and geo-engineering,
introduced in 2009 and computational management science &
econophysics and soft matter both introduced in 2012.
3.2. Evolution of the research subject areas
3.2.1. Ariadna study topic areas
A second indicator for research area trends can be derived
from the study areas of ACT collaborative studies together with
European academia. These Ariadna studies are conceived by
the team’s researchers and usually preceded by internal research
work of the team. To a large extend these therefore tend to
overlap with the post-doctoral research areas described in the
previous section.
The data presented in Fig. 6 and 7 demonstrate the clear
link for smaller areas such as nano-technology, propulsion and
energy. They however hide some of the important evolutions
4
group on the same topic, delivering a first coordinated coherent
position of ESA on the topic. [79] Similar mechanisms have
been at place for the topics of nuclear power sources for space,
planetary protection aspects and the (then) emerging maturity
of global optimisation techniques. [80–84]
Reports and recommendations have been produced by the
team several years prior to these topics receiving the attention
of mainstream ESA and most initial points made and directions proposed in this work can be clearly identified in subsequent roadmaps and technology strategy documents on these
topics. [82–85]
Some of the ideas and concepts are not taken up by ESA
but by external entities: These range from small programmes
funded further at national level (e.g. tether research in Spain,
space webs in Scotland and Sweden, further development
and testing of the 4-grid ion thruster in UK, . . . ), concepts
taken up by start-up companies (e.g. Metal-hydride fuel cells)
to large EU framework programme activities (e.g. e 3.5M
helicon-thruster FP7 activity directly based on e 25k Ariadna
study). [86–88][89–91][92–98]
More specifically regarding only Ariadna research topics, the
study of whether the topic was continued outside of the ACT
frame reveals that out of the 55 unique study topics, 67% have
been continued by others without involvement of the ACT following the initial study performed by the ACT and academic
research partners. Only 27% however have been picked up by
other units within ESA and all of those have also been continued outside of ESA; thus 33% of all study topics have not found
any other entity which considers the topic of enough interest to
fund further steps. This analysis excludes all studies done after 2011. Surprisingly there does not seem to be a statistically
significant difference in the ratio between studies which have
been followed up by others and those not picked up between
those studies conducted in the early years 2004-2007 compared
to the years 2008 to 2011. [1]
Figure 7: Evolution of the research areas of Ariadna studies in absolute terms
between 2004 and 2012.
Similar evolutions are visible within the general research
fields of biomimetics and fundamental physics, with the difference to mission analysis that they have not developed a constant
theme over the years.
The field of biomimetics started with research on electroactive polymer-based artificial muscles for novel mechanisms
in 2004, biologically inspired joints in 2005 and bio-inspired
distributed systems for thermal or particle transport together
and bio-inspired strain sensors in 2006. [34, 35] In 2007, the
studies focussed on spider-leg-inspired attaching mechanisms
and plant root mechanisms for future exploration purposes in
parallel to the options of hybrid machine/animal controllers for
space applications. [36–49] Shifting the focus towards plantsinspired biomimetic research, the team started investigating
in 2012 how mechanisms of self-burying seeds and the thigmotrophic behaviour of climbing plants can inspire solutions to
engineering problems in space. [50–53]
In parallel studies related to human exploration were performed in the fields of mammalian hibernation mechanisms and
potential relevance to long-duration human spaceflight (2004)
and initiating in 2006 the new research field of bioengineering, the team studied different non-invasive brain-machine interfaces. [54–64] This led to two studies in 2009 regarding the
neural modelling for image analysis (“curiosity cloning”) in the
field of bioengineering. [65–68]
The team’s research in the field of biomimetics also directly
triggered investigations in the field of artificial intelligence. As
such the study on the neuromorphic computation of optic flow
data from 2009 led to a series of internal studies on the use
of bio-inspired highly efficient optical flow and time-to-contact
studies for autonomous landing, as well as though to a lesser extent to the investigation of probabilistic computing for efficient
robotic vision in space (2012). [69–78]
Several topics have since transitioned into the mainstream
area of space activities. Examples of early identification by the
team of topics of “future” interest which have since then become directly relevant include the emergence of suborbital and
private spaceflight (report entitled “Is a second space age coming?” which was followed later by studies on space tourism
and related technologies as well as by an ESA-wide working
Figure 8: Repartition of follow-up activities after ACT Ariadna studies. All
studies continued within ESA have also found some form of follow-up activities
outside of ESA.
This counter-intuitive fact seems to indicate that either the
time span is too short with respect to the type of concepts studied or that good ideas are able to find follow-up financing and
support independent of their maturity level.
5
The workshops therefore combine presentations of research
results of ACT researchers, research done within its university network and research highlights in different disciplines not
yet closely related to space activities together with methods to
gather the expectations of participants.
The three workshops differed in their method. While the first
one followed a classic approach, the second one organised the
day around meta-themes for ongoing and future research directions and engaged all participants into a joint reflection on their
expectations. The third one, organised at the occasion of the
team’s 10 year’s anniversary went one step further by organising the first European space un-conference, leaving one day
entirely up to the attendance to propose, present and discuss
research topics. [104]
In addition to these general, future looking workshops, the
team organises regularly smaller, dedicated workshops. [10]
These have not been used for the present analysis.
The topics of the workshop organised in February 2008 have
been
3.2.2. Publication topic areas
While the study of the Ariadna research topics provides a
solid basis for the identification of trends, the analysis of the
research papers of the team contains higher granularity. While
the team has performed between 2004 and 2012 89 Ariadna
studies, it has published between its creation in 2002 and end
2011 407 scientific publications.
Fig. 9 shows the relative changes in the evolution of the publications of the team. It shows a similar tendency as the ones
found in the previous sections. Given that scientific disciplines
have developed very different publication patterns, the direct
comparison between the disciplines needs to be done with great
care. The relative changes over time contain therefore the information most valuable for the present analysis.
• Interstellar Precursor Missions using Advanced Dualstage Ion Propulsion Systems
• Innovative Interstellar Explorer
• Advanced Solar and Nuclear Electric Propulsion Systems
for Asteroid Deflection
• Formation Flying pico/nanosat swarms for very large aperture synthesis
• APIES: exploring the asteroid belt with satellite swarms
• Navigating swarm using behavioural approaches
• Coulomb Formation Flying
• Flower Constellations as Rigid Objects in Space
• Panel Extension Satellite (PETSAT) A Novel Satellite
Concept Consisting of Modular, Functional and Plug-in
Panels
• Electrodynamic Tethers for the Exploration of Jupiter &
its Icy Moons
• Attitude Control of Agile Spacecraft
Figure 9: Evolution of the scientific publications of the ACT between 2002 and
2011 in relative terms. The absolute number of publications per disciplines are
displayed directly in the columns.
3.3. Evolution of research areas and expectations at the advanced concepts workshops
The 2008 workshop panels have been organised around
meta-themes including contributions from different disciplines.
The workshop has proven to offer a rare occasions for scientists
from different disciplines to actually exchange and discuss their
research in a neutral environment. During the months prior to
the workshop participants were shaping these themes via their
collaborative definition and discussions facilitated by an online
wiki-tool.The topics of the 2008 workshop have been grouped
into four meta-themes:
The three advanced concepts workshops, organised by the
team in 2006, 2008 and 2012 are the basis for this section. At
these workshops, recent research results are presented and future research directions are discussed. These workshops gather
between 50 and 100 persons, mainly from academia. All three
workshops were held at the ESTEC facility of the European
Space Agency.
Following the theory sometimes called the “wisdom of
crowds” [99] and the notion that innovation can also be driven
by expectation, expectations have the possibility to become
self-fulfilling prophesies by generating risk capital to “trendy”
research areas and therefore increasing the changes for advances in these areas. Hence, surveys of expectations could
provide valuable input for methods probing future options.
To this end, the ACT is reviewing some selected reports by
research-funding organisations, large corporations, academia
and even technology future betting sites on the internet and Delphic polls in order to derive expectations for future science and
technology trends. [100–103]
1. “enabling tomorrows pioneers”
•
•
•
•
Visual guidance based on optic flow
Spin-ins for a new propulsion era?
Integrating Robots into smart environments
Integration of cellular biological structures into
robotic systems
2. “vis viva from space”
• Kinetic Energy Harvesting
• Biomass Based Fuel Cells
6
• Orbital Energy of Natural Satellites Converted into
Permanent Power for Spacecraft
• Harnessing Power from solar wind particles captured
in the Van Allen belts
these predictions relate to human exploration and what could
be called “colonisation of space”, specifically the Moon and
Mars. This is not surprising per se, given that these are part of
the plans of all major space agencies, but it is interesting that
this aspect of space generates so much interest compared to examples that are much closer to daily life, e.g. telecommunication, global positioning systems or missions that are scientifically equally interesting like unmanned exploration missions of
other planets. Viewed in this context many of the answers can
be seen as the development of technologies that would help human colonisation of space. The following paragraphs provide
some examples. The wordings proposed by workshop participants have been kept unchanged for authenticity.
Based on the inputs received, in the decade from 2010 to
2020, humans are expected to be gradually “enhanced” via the
introduction and implantation of new embedded technologies,
and at the same time, robotic technologies are believed to be
increasingly pervasive. First signs of this trend are already visible and reported in specialised media, like the increasing use
of mental performance and memory enhancing drugs especially
in US high schools, the transfer of some of the techniques and
tools used in high performance sports and the increasing reliance on electronic assistants. The following list gives a few
examples added by workshop attendees.
3. “driving evolution”
• Playing with Forces and Interactions to Manipulate
Single Molecules
• Bio-inspired Surface Interaction Systems
• Carbon Nanotubes: future horizons
4. “discovering natural paths’’
•
•
•
•
Electrostatic swarm control
Invariant Relative Satellite Motion
Pulsar navigation
Insect navigation and path finding
Each of these were discussed by expert panels after the different presentations and then summarised to provide input into
a panel entitled ”Space 2030”. [105]
In addition to their participation to the panel discussions
and the contributions to the science and technology expectation timelines, all workshop participants were invited to answer
the following two questions:
1. ”What, in your opinion, is the most important technology
the European Space Agency should invest in?”
2. ”What, in your opinion, is the most important decision the
European Space Agency should take?”
2013 implanted biosensors
2015 robotic technologies invade our homes;
vibration powered subsystems
2020 robot human environment symbiotic systems available
for space missions
2022 organ repair
In line with a trend towards more interactive, less static conferences (e.g. SciFoo [106]), in 2008 a new element was added
to the workshop; the audience, coming from a wide variety of
scientific disciplines was invited to interactively participate in
the formulation of the collective expectations of upcoming science and technology trends. Very little constraints were given
to participants, who had at their disposal a large board with
a timeline where they pinned expectations in form of post-it
notes.
The last panel of the workshop was then attempting to combine these inputs (from the papers, the panels and from the audience) like pieces of a puzzle into a multi-facetted picture of
expectations, trends and possible environments. These are of
course only showing snapshots of parts of different “pictures”,
that then can be used to build upon scenarios against which to
test the robustness of different strategies. It seems worth underlining that these visions are of course highly dependent on
the type of persons speaking at the workshop, the pre-selections
done and the dynamic developing during the discussions.
For more details on the analysis of the 2008 workshop, including it’s methodology, we refer to an earlier dedicated publication. [9] The following two subsections provide a short summary of the results relevant to the research questions of the
present paper.
According to the workshop audience, in the decade from
2020-2030, these robotic technology and human augmentations
will allow humans to put feet again onto the moon and to extend
the industrial and leisure sphere of humanity into low earth orbit with the options of space hotels as part of real space tourism.
Examples put forward are:
2019 Space hotels/space tourism
2020 Wo/man on the moon again
2027 Robotic construction of first base on moon
At the same time, humans are expected to make substantial
advances in the understanding of biological principles and how
to use them; partly as translated laws for machine behaviour,
partly using organisms themselves in hostile environments. Biology and life sciences therefore occupy a much more prominent role in the list of technologies than could be expected in
such a workshop at a space agency. Examples include
2026
2028
2029
2030
3.3.1. 2008 workshop timeline expectations
The answers put onto the timeline exercise range from predictions about specific technologies to visions of a future society that would organise “concerts on the Moon”. Many of
Self-replicating machines
Extremophiles in Mars environment
Self-organising robot ecologies
Organisms genetically adapted to other planets
These new “machines” and ways of organising are expected
to greatly benefit from parallel advances to be made in computing and miniaturisation. Examples put forward contain:
7
2029 Commercial quantum computing;
Cell-sized computers
software is furthermore integrating new processor capabilities,
leading to space hard- and software remaining in a small niche
of the market with difficulties to fully benefit from the fast technological progress. [105]
Some general trends expected were related to miniaturisation
and the merging of biology and technology. As processors diminish in size and physical interfaces between biological cells
and electronic circuits are developed, new possibilities for integrating electronics into organisms (animal and human bodies)
or using biological cells as sensors and control systems would
arise. This trend was perceived as going hand in hand with
the long-term tendency of research funds, interest and students
moving from physical to life sciences. It was expected to help
IT tools to becoming more pervasive and integrated. [105]
The current state of space activities and the space industry have been compared to the computing industry during the
1970s: created by and via the needs of large governmental programmes with a strong defence component, dominated by a few
high-tech enterprises, with a restrictively high entrance barrier
(e.g. cost of mainframe computer systems in the 1970s and cost
of satellites and access to space) and relatively closed with little
input from outside and other domains. The invention of the personal computer, independent software, user-interfaces and the
“handing over” of the decisions what to use it for to the users,
led to completely new uses and markets: while computers were
so far essentially used for large calculations, people started to
play games with them in addition to writing letters. The internet, the use by the porno- and advertising industry brought further radical changes hardly envisaged by the mainframe computer industry of the 1970s. Participants argued that the space
sector might have been in a similar situation, with some of the
then emerging developments (private suborbital spaceflight, attempts to develop fully privately financed launchers, student involvement in micro and nanosatellites, advertisement financed,
free earth-observation data via Google Earth, etc) which were
still outside the mainstream space business could be considered
as indicators for larger change - and thus space agencies needed
to anticipate them in preparation of their own future contributions to space activities. [105]
3.3.2. 2008 Workshop - Recommendations by participants
To the question to the audience on the “most important technology ESA should invest in”, not surprisingly, a relative majority of 30% of all answers were related to access to space,
launcher and propulsion technologies. These ranged from recommendations for a break-through propulsion programme to
specific technologies, like nuclear electric and nuclear thermal
propulsion systems. The second most quoted technologies for
ESA to invest in (23%) were energy related, including both, advanced energy systems for space (nuclear and advanced solar
technologies) as well as wireless power transmission and the
use of space-captured solar energy for terrestrial uses. Artificial intelligence and robotics technologies were quoted by 20%
of the answers followed by bio- and nanotechnologies (17%).
To the question on the “most important decision for ESA to
take”, more than 60% of all answers were related to the following three recommendations:
1. increase research, advanced technology and innovation
funding and open space to research in other research domains (26%);
2. change the general approach of space activities towards a
high-risk low-cost model (18%);
3. improve the visibility and communication of space activities and their benefit to society (18%).
In decreasing order of times proposed, it was recommended
to define and communicate a clear long-term goal and vision of
ESA/European space activities (9%), to establish strong links
to the EU, watch and compete with the Chinese space programme and decide whether to embark on a human spaceflight
programme or focus on robotic missions (6% each). Some original suggestions related to the creation of a European space university and the massive support for space tourism.
3.3.3. Selected conclusions from the 2008 workshop
While referring to Summerer et al. [9] for details, this subsection summarises a few generic conclusions related to science
and technology trends of the 2008 workshop.
Moore’s law, stipulating an exponential increase in computing performance over time based on spectacular and continuous progress in miniaturising of electronic circuits, has been
surprisingly solid and enabled not only the emergence of the
personal computer industry but revolutionised whole areas of
industry and society. [107] It was generally expected that the
evolution of microchips would be likely to continue to progress
according to Moore’s law until 2020.
For space activities, these have many implications: on the
one side, data processing is at the core of space mission. With
exponential growth rates in semiconductor chips performance
but only little reduction in the development time for spacecraft,
the technological discrepancy is increasing between on-board
processors and those of terrestrially used ones, e.g. in alternatives solutions to services provided by satellites. Modern
3.3.4. 2012 Advanced Concepts Workshop
At the occasion of it’s 10th anniversary, a two days event
took place on 2-3 July 2012 at ESTEC (Netherlands) under the
theme of “Thinking Tomorrow” to prepare for the next ten years
of the team: to review current space research, analyse trends
and consider new areas, outside the traditional planning horizons of ESA. [104]
The first day of the workshop was dedicated to the first
European space un-conference. The mechanism of the unconference turns the traditional conference preparation upside
down by allowing participants to determine the conference programme. During the first 30 min all participants propose sessions by putting them onto a number of large poster panels.
Session proposers are also organising them and free to run and
structure their sessions as they consider would suit their topics best. Sessions can be formal, though they tend to be informal and interactive. They ranged from well thought out pre8
• Very large structures in space - visions and interesting research directions
prepared talks reflecting years of research and practice to the
spur of the moment new idea. Session units were 30 minutes,
though sessions can be scheduled for more than one unit. The
un-conference took place in three parallel streams of sessions
with the following topics:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
4. RESULTS
Wormholes & Co. Let’s be critical about SciFi
Distributed Space debris removal?
Innovation for our future unexpected pathways
Apogeios a space city for 10.000 inhabitants
Escaping the solar system new speeds new distances
(brainstorming)
You and (A)i or: what non-AI people think about artificial
intelligence?
Asteroid Mining colloquium
DSMC extensions for future space research
Using skylasers to get 100kg to GEO
What is the best mechanism for sustainable innovation in
space agency?
Preparing for Noah’s ark on the moon to preserve life
Innovation transfer to industry: why does it take so long?
Why are our robots not walking yet?
Open discussion: massive robotic swarms in space
Robots that can crash... (and not completely fail)
SPS and ISRU vs Earth-made trade off
Weather control using SSP technology from JAXA weaken large Typhoon
LASER applications in space
Smart materials - toys or tools?
UFO phenomena - can earth observation confirm these?
Possible ”advanced?” concepts for EO?
(Where) is Evolutionary Robotics moving?
Neuro-inspired interface from thoughts to actions
Open-source tools for space mission design - the way of
the future?
Cubesats future evolution - What will they do in the next
20 years?
Ideas of Kosmo Klub - How Czech space enthusiasts see
the future
The review of the different research directions the ACT has
started between 2002 and 2012 allows to draw some preliminary conclusion regarding the main research questions addressed by the present paper:
1. Are there research topics that have emerged at the ACT
and transitioned to mainstream space?
2. How the research focus of the ACT and its larger research
network evolved during the first ten years of operations of
the team?
Most of the research topics the team has initiated have not
been addressed by ESA before the team has started performing
research on them and many have never been dealt with within
a space context. The analysis of the research field of post-doc
and post-graduate researchers as performed in section 3.1 gives
only limited information with respect to this research question
due to the broadness of the formulation of the different research
areas. A more detailed analysis, e.g. taking into account the
respective vacancy notices in the field could provide the level
of granularity needed in a next step of such an assessment. A
similar level of detail is contained in the information regarding
the Ariadna study topics. The data presented in the previous
section shows together with the statistics presented in 3.2.1 that
some topics not only have been taken over by other entities, but
a significant portion of these also have been fairly successful in
maturing them further:
The feasibility study for a spacecraft navigation system relying on pulsar timing information has since been continued
both at university level in Europe as well as by different Chinese teams and in the US. [108–112] The use of interval arithmetic for spacecraft trajectories has been continued ever since,
though mainly in the academic area. [113–116] The teams’ Ariadna study of the working mechanisms of helicon thrusters has
lead to a two-order of magnitude larger multi-year study on the
topic financed by the EC via FP7. [117]
The work on optical metamaterials for space is another example of a research topic which has been transferred to mainstream
space R&D after being introduced by the team in 2008. [118–
123] While metamaterials in the microwave frequency range
have been studied also in the space context ([124–126]), it took
advances in nanotechnology to enable those to be applied also
to optical metamaterials, where the team made a significant
contribution to the method of transformation optics. [120] This
success led to the attempted application of this method to the
still emerging field of acoustic metamaterials. [1]
The Ariadna scheme is one of the key mechanism for the research of the team. However, most of the actual work of the
team is done outside of Ariadna studies. Therefore, another aspect of how concepts and topics of the team are transferred to
the core of the Agency is to consider the transfer of disciplines
and general topics started by the team and then contributed to
All of these sessions were open to participation by anybody
interested via the use of a collaborative minute writing tool
based on etherpad. [104]
The topics presented and discussed at the second day of the
conference, included
• Can ESA find new ways though technical competitions?
• Trends in advanced research on mission analysis
• From Desert Ant navigation to landing like a bee Biomimetics for space
• Do we need AI? Does AI need us?
• From debunking murky propulsion concepts to new ways
of swimming in space-time and relativistic positioning
systems
• Innovative ways to active space debris removal
• New prospects for electric propulsion? From plasma research to advanced electric thrusters, new plasma sources
and electric thrusters
9
and taken over by other ESA departments. So far, three general
disciplines have been started as such by the team and subsequently been taken up by other ESA departments. The take-up
mechanism also allows appreciating the variety of these processes:
The team started to address the topic of planetary protection in a scientific manner in 2002. Recognised as providing a
key competence, the ACT post-doctoral researcher in the field
has been subsequently recruited and continues activities on the
topic within a dedicated unit in the main technical directorate.
In a similar manner, the topic of nuclear power sources for
space has been transferred to the main technical directorate.
The team performed several studies on radioisotope power
systems as well as on space nuclear reactors from 2002 onwards, based on which a coherent strategic approach was developed. [81–83, 85, 127] In 2007 a position was created within
the technical directorate, fully dedicated to activities related to
radioisotope power sources for space. Joint publications are indicative of the efficient and smooth handover process. [84]
Global optimisation is a very wide topic and key to many different disciplines. The team has been promoting its use especially in the frame of trajectory optimisation since 2002. [128–
143] While it is still not considered as being mature enough
for introduction into most operational phases of space missions,
the way the global trajectory optimisation competition (GTOC),
initiated by the team in 2004, has been accepted by the community demonstrates the high potential of the method. The results
of these competitions also show that these methods are getting
closer and closer to being mature enough for operational use.
The team started working on different advanced methods to
deflect asteroids in 2002. [129, 144–152] An Ariadna call for
ideas in 2008 has put further momentum to the topic. [153–156]
Since then the topic has received increasing attention from the
mainstream space research community.
The team started working on the general field of potential contributions from space to the energy sector in
2002/2003. [157–161] The topic of energy and sustainability
has migrated in subsequent years from the technical and scientific domain to receive the attention of national and international policies, triggering substantial activities. [162, 163]
Within ESA, the topic has been subsequently included in a variety of programmes [164, 165] and led to join activities with
the European Commission. [166]
Space debris have been an active area of research and investigations with increasing importance and attention since the
1980s. [167, 168] In parallel to the progress made on international standards for space debris mitigation, the team has
started working on active space debris removal concepts. An
Ariadna call for ideas on the topic in 2010 triggered additional
attention. [169–173] Recent studies on the potential need to accompany debris mitigation methods with active space debris removal methods in order to stabilise the growth of debris in some
orbits has further highlighted the importance of the topic. In
2012, it was introduced as one of the pillars into ESA’s “Clean
Space” initiative. [174]
Some topics have not been the subject of proper scientific research by ACT researchers but have been identified as of impor-
tant early on essentially as a side-product of ongoing research.
The analysis of the topics and discussions at the advanced concepts workshop provide a valuable insight into this aspect. Examples that have emerged in such a way are the importance of
cubesats especially as a means to open up the space sector to
innovative ways of conducting space activities. [175–177]
Some of the activities launched by the ACT in 2010-2012
have already shown first signs of being considered by the mainstream space community. These include concepts such as the
use of bio-inspired navigation, especially for robust descent and
landing via the use of optic flow and time to contact [77, 178–
181] and purely relativistic global navigation systems. [182]
5. CONCLUSIONS
On a variety of research topics, the method employed by
ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team, consisting in short of encouraging post-doctoral and post-graduate researchers to think out
of the box in an interdisciplinary setting, has led to the early
identification of research trends which subsequently were introduced into mainstream space R&D programmes. Based on
data analysed in section 3, section 4 provides results and examples of this process.
Under the assumption that the methodology has a direct impact on the past successes of the team in early identifying research trends of future importance to the larger space sector,
and that these are not the product of pure chance, it can be assumed that some of the described ongoing research topics will
enter the mainstream space R&D in the upcoming years.
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