A Review of Impending Small Satellite Formation Flying Missions

Bandyopadhyay, Saptarshi; Subramanian, Giri P.; Foust, Rebecca; Morgan, Daniel; Chung, Soon‐Jo; Hadaegh, Fred Y.

doi:10.2514/6.2015-1623

Cited by 70 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This will require some level of propulsion. Formation flying of cubesats is an active area of research, with many missions proposed as demonstrations [4]. These missions demonstrate a TRL level for formation flying and propulsion technologies at TRL6 for the concept, but more likely TRL3 for the exact requirements of the proposed mission concept.…”

Section: Propulsion and Formation Flyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

SmallSat interferometry for THz astrophysics

Groppi

Goldsmith

Mauskopf

et al. 2018

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

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Section: Propulsion and Formation Flyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

SmallSat interferometry for THz astrophysics

Groppi

Goldsmith

Mauskopf

et al. 2018

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

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“…As a result, more and more space missions are designed as DSS [6], i.e. several satellites act together to achieve joint mission objectives.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Applications like weather monitoring and earth imaging clearly benefit from distributed approaches as well. An increasing number of space missions based on DSS is currently in various stages of development, most of them Earth science-related missions [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applicability of delay tolerant networking to distributed satellite systems

et al. 2016

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interacting small satellites to realize distributed missions. There are various fields of application for distributed satellite systems (DSS), such as earth observation missions, distributed sensor networks and communication relays for remote locations. Also the combination of traditional large monolithic satellites with distributed small satellite systems is promising. In such distributed architectures, inter-satellite communication is one of the key aspects and, therefore, potential approaches need to be investigated. Hence, intersatellite communication is currently one of the hot topics in the satellite community. Adequate networking solutions are required to allow for efficient data exchange within challenging networks such as DSS in earth orbits. Therefore, the benefit of delay tolerant networking (DTN) for DSS is investigated, a promising approach for communication in challenging networks. Within the scope of this article, extensive simulations for typical scenarios have been performed to investigate the benefit of using DTN in those systems.To define the scope of our investigation an introduction to DSS is given in the following section. In Sect. 3, the DTN concept is introduced and its differences compared to traditional approaches are characterized followed by an overview of available implementations and in-orbit test results. Subsequently, in Sect. 4 a description of the simulated scenarios and our simulation framework follows, in Sect. 5 the results of the simulations are discussed. Section 6 concludes with derived statements about the applicability of the DTN approach to DSS and an outlook on future developments. Communication in distributed satellite systemsIn the last decade, many small satellites were launched into low earth orbits. Space vehicles are considered as small Abstract Currently, a trend towards distributed small satellite missions is emerging using cooperating satellites to achieve joint mission objectives, e.g. for earth observation. Communication is a key feature when cooperation between satellites is desired. Typically those satellite networks are affected by slow data rates, high packet loss and intermittent connectivity. To address these challenges the storeand-forward approach of the delay tolerant networking (DTN) concept is investigated in this article. Network simulations of typical scenarios were carried out and evaluated to derive statements about the applicability of the DTN approach to networks in low earth orbits.

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“…4,5 However, a survey of existing or proposed CubeSat FF missions concludes that there is a dearth of FF missions using four or more CubeSats that require formation maintenance and reconfiguration maneuvers. 6 Hence, the aim of this paper is to present a systems engineering based design of a formation flying technology demonstration mission using 4-6 CubeSats. The paper also highlights the (1a) 4 CubeSats maintain a tetrahedron formation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (1b) 6 CubeSats perform multiple optimal reconfiguration among different J2-invariant orbits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Subramanian

Foust

Chen

et al. 2015

53rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting

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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.

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A Review of Impending Small Satellite Formation Flying Missions

Cited by 70 publications

References 8 publications

SmallSat interferometry for THz astrophysics

SmallSat interferometry for THz astrophysics

Applicability of delay tolerant networking to distributed satellite systems

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

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