Space Colloquium Würzburg

Center for Telematics (ZfT) is among the European technology leaders in implementation of advanced multi satellite missions. Here a survey of formation applications in Earth Observation and Telecommunication, currently in implementation stage at ZfT are presented: for secure communication missions for Quantum Key Distribution (such as QUBE, CubEniK and QUBE-2) are addressed, as well as LoLaSat for low-latency 5G communication (by S4 in Würzburg as prime contractor to ESA). Emphasis will be on satellite formation flying missions for Earth Observation: The TOM mission envisages distributed 3D Earth and cloud observations by three distributed CubeSats, while the CloudCT mission aims for computed tomography of clouds with a formation of 10 cooperating CubeSats in order to improve climate predictions. In particular, the key technologies and the future challenges for formations will be emphasized.

Interested persons can dial in for the presentation at https://go.uniwue.de/space-colloquium. 

Curriculum Vitae Mr. Scharnagl: Julian Scharnagl studied Physics and Space Science and Technology at University of Würzburg and Luleå University of Technology, graduating in 2012. In 2013 he started his professional career at Info VII at University of Würzburg in the field of relative navigation of spacecraft, focusing on close range rendezvous & docking. In 2015 he joined the Center for Telematics (ZfT) for the NetSat project and his related research on satellite formation control. He was awarded a doctoral scholarship within ESA's NPI program at ZfT and started his PhD on distributed control for multiple small spacecraft. As part of this scholarship he spent 6 months in the Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) section at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Since 2018 he is heading the space department at ZfT, coordinating the team of researchers, as well as several formation missions, including TOM and CloudCT.