The Ball Bearing Software workshop 2020 will take place at ESA / ESTEC - Noordwijk, the Netherlands, Newton Conference Room on the 12th of February 2020. 

Ball bearings find application in a large majority of space mechanisms, as antenna deployment and pointing mechanisms, solar array drive mechanisms, scanners, mirror tip/tilt and refocusing devices, active/adaptive optics systems, filter wheels, laser pointing for optical communication terminals, or instrument calibration units. 

Ball bearings technology is ensuring the critical guiding function of a mechanism, and is consequently at the heart of mechanism sizing. 
The use of software is a key to evaluate ball bearing performances properly.

The main goal of the workshop is to share the improvement needs identified for Ball bearings software, and to finalise a relevant roadmap of ESA R&D activities to support European industries at the best.

The workshop will cover the following topics:

• Ball bearing initial selection through C0 evaluation
• Ball bearing selection confirmation : expected design justification file for Mechanism Design Review (PDR, CDR)
• Ball bearing license free software : requirement, general presentation, compliance status to the requirement, last improvement, and existing road map
• Main ball bearing suppliers : company presentation, study case results and data base for space mechanisms designer

The workshop aims also to facilitate supplier – customer relations by discussing the state-of-the-art in ball bearing technology for space mechanisms.
Representatives of the European space mechanisms community are encouraged to participate in the Workshop on Ball Bearing Software, which aims at reviewing, discussing and promoting the related approaches and competences in this domain of space mechanisms.

Contact (Ball bearing software workshop)
Alain BLANC
Phone: +31 71 565 4859
Email: Alain.Blanc@esa.int   

Feel free to contact Alain BLANC in case of specific questions relative to the ball bearing software workshop.