![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2019\/04\/testing_satellite_marker_designs\/19359484-1-eng-GB\/Testing_satellite_marker_designs_small.jpg\")
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\nAkin to landing lights for aircraft, ESA is developing infrared and phosphorescent markers for satellites, to help future space servicing vehicles rendezvous and dock with their targets.\n<\/p>\n
\nDeveloped by Hungarian company Admatis<\/a> as part of an ESA Clean Space<\/a> project, these markers would offer robotic space servicing vehicles a steady target to home in on, providing critical information on the line of sight, distance and pointing direction of their target satellite.\n<\/p>\n \nInitial testing of these \u2018Passive Emitting Material at end-of-life\u2019 or PEMSUN markers took place at the end of March 2019 inside ESA\u2019s GNC Rendezvous, Approach and Landing Simulator<\/a>, part of the Agency’s Orbital Robotics and Guidance, Navigation and Control Laboratory, at its ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe idea itself is not new, but this is the first time we\u2019ve manufactured and tested sample patches, cut into spacecraft multi-layer insulation covering,\u201d comments ESA Clean Space trainee S\u00e9bastien Perrault. \u201cFor the design we\u2019ve looked into one larger pattern incorporating smaller versions<\/a> for when the space servicing vehicle comes close enough that its camera\u2019s field of view is filled.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThese markers would be very useful during eclipse states for instance, when Earth obscures the Sun in low Earth orbit, to allow the chaser vehicle to stay fixed on its target, potentially in combination with radio tags.\u201d\n<\/p>\n