Today's satellites require extreme ground support in order to fulfill their tasks. Their mission planning is completely worked out on ground. The results in form of satellite mission plans are uploaded via telecommands and executed by the onboard computer (or other addressed satellite components respectively) at predefined conditions (usually points in time). This approach has some major drawbacks. The most pressing ones are the extreme cost factor driven by highly trained personal staff, and the reduced capability of these satellites to respond to short-lived events in a quickly manner. One way to mitigate these listed negative effects is to increase the autonomy of satellites in order to break up their strong dependency to ground stations. This paper will present such an approach. With ASAP the University of Wuerzburg develops a component for the satellite bus, which can be connected to the onboard computer of the satellite. The strength of ASAP lies in its capability to provide autonomous functionality, hereby greatly increasing the autonomy of the satellite itself. ASAP consists of several sub-components. Their composition and their functionality, regarding their contribution to autonomy, are the topics of this paper.
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