Inventing and integrating new technologies into todays spaceborne platforms is inevitable for the technical demands, cost-effectivenes and tight schedules of future missions. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) as the national aeronautics and space research center of the Federal Republic of Germany plays a central role within this demanding task. DLR focuses on technology research, development and maturation, working closely together with universities at basic research level on the one hand, and with industry at application level on the other hand. The Small Satellite Technology Experiment Platform S2TEP is DLR's workhorse for doing this kind of research and development: focusing on scientific and technological needs and societal relevance, the S2TEP platform with its modular and scalable design offers the possibility to demonstrate novel technologies and increase their Technology Readiness Level (TRL) from 6 to 9 by in-orbit test and verification. This is absolutely necessary for doing innovative and pioneering research and development, thereby providing flight-proven technologies to future scientific and commercial missions. The initial research on subsystem level is concentrated on the classical core avionic technologies like the on-board computer, the on-board software, as well as power- and communication systems. But this list is open for further expansions in terms of its research scope, and national as well as European initiatives provide a fertile cooperation environment. By putting a huge emphasis on scalability from component to system level, the developed technologies have the potential to leave the small satellite scope and be integrated into larger satellites as well. The flexibility of S2TEP-based missions is further extended by using a model-based design process and software development, simulation and automatic verification at different levels as well as a decentralized operational concept with a high degree of autonomy. Within this paper we will give
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