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The Digital Twin of ESAs Large Space Simulator

This conference paper was submitted for presentation at the NAFEMS World Congress 2025, held in Salzburg, Austria from May 19–22, 2025.

Abstract

This paper presents the digital twin of the Large Space Simulator (LSS), as it undergoes the final stage of its development. Located in The Netherlands, the LSS is Europe'™s largest thermal vacuum chamber and is used by the European Space Agency to test spacecrafts under representative space conditions: vacuum, cryogenic temperatures and powerful, dynamic solar illumination. The purposes of this digital twin are to simulate: 1. Future test campaigns (standard of specific ones) to support the training to operate the LSS facility 2. The performance of the facility with future hardware or software modifications and carry out software/hardware-in-the-loop pre-tests 3. Abnormal facility operation with failed equipment The digital twin consists of three layers: 1. a high fidelity EcosimPro model of the LSS to simulate its physical performance 2. a virtual version of the LSS Programmable Logic Computer to execute the process control 3. an identical Human-Machine Interface to the one of the LSS for the user to interact with A co-simulation manager ensures the exchange of information between the above three layers and enables digital twin-specific functionalities such as adjusting the simulation speed, upload/start/stop/save a simulation run, load pre-defined failure scenarios and virtually carry out the key procedure steps that are manually performed on the field. To maximise the representativeness of the real facility operation, the digital twin is designed to be operable from the same monitors of the LSS control room and to display the simulation results using the same data acquisition and presentation software used by the LSS: STAMP (System for Thermal Analysis, Measurement, and Power supply control), developed by Therma. The digital twin is conceived to be operable by a trainee and an instructor simultaneously. The project was kicked off in November 2023, underwent detailed validation review of the models against test data in October 2024, and is expected to be completed by mid-2025. The prime contractor of this project is Empresarios Agrupados '“ GHESA, who is also the owner of the modelling software used (EcosimPro).

Document Details

ReferenceNWC25-0007459-Paper
AuthorsMoeys. R Avezuela. R
LanguageEnglish
AudienceAnalyst
TypePaper
Date 19th May 2025
OrganisationsESA/ESTEC Empresarios Agrupados
RegionGlobal

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