TAMARIV

Our vision is that physical structures too big to be transported into orbit in one piece will be constructing themselves from autonomous parts that were sent individually.

We aim to demonstrate a first step towards this vision in the TAMARIW project - semi-autonomous in-orbit assembly of a 6U cubesat out of two 3U cubesat modules.

The modules find each other, approach and dock using their magnetic subsystems. After docking, they act as one,  attitude control and orbital maneuvers are coordinated and executed synchronously for the assembled 6U cubesat.

The next step (not included in TAMARIW) could be to launch several larger components into the same orbit, that will approach autonomously and dock one by one to build the larger target structure, reconfigure and even replace modules.

The scientific objectives of this mission are very challenging and unique even for larger satellite projects,  hence autonomous docking is currently only known from multi-million euro projects, such as NASA's autonomous docking system for the ISS.

Contact:

Atheel Redah  atheel.redah@uni-wuerzburg.de

Saurav Paudel  saurav.paudel@uni-wuerzburg.de

Felix Sittner  felix.sittner@uni-wuerzburg.de

Sergio Montenegro  sergio.montenegro@uni-wuerzburg.de

Partners & Financing:

We are cooperating with colleagues from the Zentrum für Telematik e.V. Würzburg who are providing most of the satellite platform.

TAMARIW is funded by the German Ministry of Economics and Energy based on a resolution of the German Bundestag from November 2021 till October 2026.