IOD/IOV Service (Horizon Europe) - IHE1-4 Cubesat Project 2024

One of the main objectives of the Space Strategy for Europe is to foster a globally competitive and innovative European space sector in particular by improving support to technological maturation, for sub-systems, equipment and technologies, including in-orbit demonstration and validation activities, to reduce time to market. To ensure the European Union non-dependence and competitiveness in technologies, there is a clear need for a regular, sustainable, cost-effective and responsive In-Orbit Demonstration/Validation (IOD/IOV) Service in the European Union. Space flight heritage in real conditions and environment is often required to de-risk innovations such as new technologies, products, concepts, architectures, and operations techniques, are they for unique or recurrent, institutional or commercial missions. On 31 March 2023, the European Commission issued a call for expression of interest for IOD/IOV Experiments needing aggregation (available here: https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/funding-and-grants/calls-proposals/orbit-demonstrationvalidation-20232026_en). The objective is to promote European competitiveness and non-dependence by offering flight opportunities through IOD/IOV for European experiments. The European Commission expects to select a number of experiments that would fly with the Horizon Europe Cassini In-Orbit Demonstration/Validation (IOD/IOV) Service. The IHE1-4 Cubesat Project aims to provide the Horizon Europe In-Orbit demonstration/Validation (IOD/IOV) Service with IOD/IOV Carriers based on European cubesats platforms, with a volume of 12U format. The IHE1-4 Cubesat Project contractor will be responsible to specify and deliver all elements required to accommodate a set of experiments selected by the European Commission, in order to bring them into space and to allow for demonstration and/or validation purposes. These activities include: — system studies, at ground and space segment levels, including accommodation analysis of the IOD/IOV Experiments on the IOD/IOV Carrier and the compatibility analysis with the available launch solutions; — input to the launch mission analysis for the launch service provider; — manufacturing, assembly, integration and test of the whole IOD/IOV spacecraft on the basis of EU manufactured solutions including the selected experiments; — ground segment capabilities (facilities and operators) to operate the IOV/IOV mission; — management of interfaces between the different IOD/IOV experiments and the IOD/IOV Carrier; — input to launcher interfaces; — operations of the IOD/IOV spacecraft taking into account the specific needs of the experiments; — delivery of the experiments inflight data to the experiment providers, with a right to use for ESA and EU. This project is funded by the European Union. ESA is the contracting authority and runs the procurement under the ESA/REG/001 rev.5. adapted as per the signed FFPA agreement.