Information-Driven Systems Engineering Study of a Formation Flying Demonstration Mission using Six CubeSats

Abstract

Small satellites are suitable for formation flying missions where a large number of spacecraft serve as distributed sensors for applications like synthetic aperture radar, interferometry, etc. A survey of existing or proposed small satellite missions concludes that there is a dearth of formation flying missions using four or more spacecraft that require formation maintenance. This paper presents a systems engineering based design of a formation flying technology demonstration mission that requires precise formation maintenance and reconfigurations and highlights the challenges that need to be overcome for its successful implementation. The goal of this paper is to provide directions for future research and development in spacecraft formation flying technologies.

Review of Formation Flying and Constellation Missions Using Nanosatellites

“…On the other hand, there is a lot of interest in demonstrating formation flying capabilities using two or three small satellites with or without docking capabilities for the purpose of enabling new science missions. Only two FF missions are currently planning to use four or more small satellites, namely SWIFT [1] and UIUC-JPL FF CubeSats [15]. Currently, the CanX-4&5 mission sets the bar for state-of-the-art FF missions.…”

“…This conceptual mission [15], led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and funded by JPL, aims to launch four or six CubeSats into LEO to demonstrate formation flying capabilities in space. The four CubeSats will maintain a tetrahedron formation in space.…”

“…The six CubeSats will demonstrate optimal reconfiguration maneuvers using real-time sequential convex programming [135] between multiple J 2 invariant relative orbits [12], which are collision-free passive orbits that require minimal amounts of fuel for orbit maintenance. Extensive simulations showed that the four-CubeSat configuration could be maintained to a 5 m accuracy for up to 100 orbits, and the six-CubeSat configuration could perform up to 20 reconfigurations between J 2 invariant orbits using state-of-the-art COTS sensors and actuators [15].…”

“…Also, the nonlinear nature of the dynamics of the satellites, with coupled formation flying control laws and environmental disturbances, makes formation flying challenging. This challenge is exacerbated by the limited capabilities of the current sensor and actuator technologies for small satellites [6,15]. Because of these challenges, FF missions is an active area for research and development (for example, see [1,[9][10][11][12][16][17][18] and the references therein).…”

Analysis Model to Optimize Ground Stations in Built-up Areas

“…This increase in the last years of science missions in LEO orbits can be seen in; small satellites projects which integrate CubeSat platform units, such as FIREBIRD placed into orbit by the Delta II rocket to study the Van Allen belts radiation (Crew et al 2015), and Centennial placed into orbit by the ISS to validate a satellite monitoring system from Earth; initiatives of CubeSat constellations (Conklin et al 2013;Leiter, 2013;Subramanian et al 2015;Peral et al 2015;Bandyopadhyay et al 2016), and; experimental studies in CubeSat performances and specific applications (Jones, 2013;Cartwright, 2014;Venturini, 2014;Briggs et al 2015;Fields et al 2015;Westerhoff et al 2015;Carreno-Luengo et al 2016). In addition, the last report …”