PROBA-3: Precise formation flying demonstration mission

Llorente, J. S.; Agenjo, Alfredo; Carrascosa, Carmelo; Negueruela, Cristina de; Mestreau-Garreau, Agnès; Cropp, Alexander; Santovincenzo, A.

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2012.05.029

Cited by 63 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…46 On-orbit demonstrations of autonomous formation flight have also been successfully achieved with the Prisma mission, 47 the TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement (TanDEM-X) mission, 48 with CubeSats, 49 within the confines of the ISS on the Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-orient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) testbed, 50 and achieving science with the upcoming external coronagraph Proba-3 mission. 51 Depending on the telescope size and the orbital environment, formation flying may be required or may be infeasible. To identify the limiting size above which formation flying is needed, we used a finite-element analysis to study the effect of increasing telescope size on structural stiffness.…”

Section: Formation Flying Of Secondary Opticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Architecture for in-space robotic assembly of a modular space telescope

Lee

Backes

Burdick

et al. 2016

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst

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Abstract. An architecture and conceptual design for a robotically assembled, modular space telescope (RAMST) that enables extremely large space telescopes to be conceived is presented. The distinguishing features of the RAMST architecture compared with prior concepts include the use of a modular deployable structure, a general-purpose robot, and advanced metrology, with the option of formation flying. To demonstrate the feasibility of the robotic assembly concept, we present a reference design using the RAMST architecture for a formation flying 100-m telescope that is assembled in Earth orbit and operated at the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2.

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Section: Formation Flying Of Secondary Opticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Architecture for in-space robotic assembly of a modular space telescope

Lee

Backes

Burdick

et al. 2016

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst

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“…Both for intersatellite communications (e.g., optical links) and remote sensing techniques (e.g., bistatic radars), being able to maintain virtual flight structures is a critical enabler for DSS. Some formations have been able to automatically maintain and correct their separation and orbits, while previous missions like PRISMA or the upcoming PROBA‐3 have presented important progresses in the area of autonomous structure build up. At the same time, some authors have addressed satellite systems that manage and exchange their resources, as in Ref.…”

Section: Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both for intersatellite communications (e.g., optical links) and remote sensing techniques (e.g., bistatic radars), being able to maintain virtual flight structures is a critical enabler for DSS. Some formations have been able to automatically maintain and correct their separation and orbits, 40 while previous missions like PRISMA 41 or the upcoming PROBA-3 42 Albeit recent studies have been able to develop optical downlinks for small satellites, 48 the ISL capabilities of these platforms still require many advancements to allow the deployment of large and interconnected swarms or constellations. In contrast, the use of off-the-shelf components (COTS) in their development may confer them with computational capabilities slightly above their traditional counterparts.…”

Section: Autonomy In Dssmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

Araguz

Bou-Balust

Alarcón

2018

Systems Engineering

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While monolithic satellite missions still pose significant advantages in terms of accuracy and operations, novel distributed architectures are promising improved flexibility, responsiveness and adaptability to structural and functional changes. Large satellite swarms, opportunistic satellite networks or heterogeneous constellations hybridizing small-spacecraft nodes with high-performance satellites are becoming feasible and advantageous alternatives requiring the adoption of new operation paradigms that enhance their autonomy. While autonomy is a notion that is gaining acceptance in monolithic satellite missions, it can also be deemed an integral characteristic in Distributed Satellite Systems. In this context, this paper focuses on the motivations for system-level autonomy in DSS and justifies its need as an enabler of system qualities.Autonomy is also presented as a necessary feature to bring new distributed Earth observation functions (which require coordination and collaboration mechanisms) and to allow for novel structural functions (e.g. opportunistic coalitions, exchange of resources or in-orbit data services).Mission Planning and Scheduling frameworks (MPS) are then presented as a key component to * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: {carles.araguz, elisenda.bou, eduard.alarcon}@upc.edu 1 implement autonomous operations in satellite missions. An exhaustive knowledge classification explores the design aspects of MPS for DSS, and conceptually groups them into: components and organizational paradigms; problem modeling and representation; optimization techniques and metaheuristics; execution and runtime characteristics; and the notions of tasks, resources and constraints. This paper concludes by proposing future strands of work devoted to study the tradeoffs of autonomy in large-scale, highly dynamic and heterogeneous networks through frameworks that consider some of the limitations of small spacecraft technologies.

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“…Besides, the advanced systems, such as accurate inter-satellite ranging system, the precise attitude determination and the control systems, are supposed to be used in high precision scenarios to avoid satellite collisions and maintain the cluster configuration. Some missions relying on two cooperative satellites, such as gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) (amid at gravimetry [11] and climate monitoring [12]), CanX-4&5 [13] (technologies validation) project for on-board autonomy-3 (PROBA-3) (target formation maintenance [14] and precise formation flying demonstration [15]), prototype research instruments and space mission advancement (PRISMA) [16] (new technology testing), and Terra SAR-X add-on for digital elevation measurement (Tandem-X) [17] (synthetic aperture radar interferometer), have already been successfully accomplished. Another advantage of using distributed satellite system for earth observation is that it can provide flexible baseline to achieve bi-/multi-static synthetic aperture radar (SAR) [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Approach to inter-satellite time synchronization for micro-satellite cluster

2018

Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics

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Micro-satellite cluster enables a whole new class of missions for communications, remote sensing, and scientific research for both civilian and military purposes. Synchronizing the time of the satellites in a cluster is important for both cluster sensing capabilities and its autonomous operating. However, the existing time synchronization methods are not suitable for microsatellite cluster, because it requires too many human interventions and occupies too much ground control resource. Although, data post-process may realize the equivalent time synchronization, it requires processing time and powerful computing ability on the ground, which cannot be implemented by cluster itself. In order to autonomously establish and maintain the time benchmark in a cluster, we propose a compact time difference compensation system (TDCS), which is a kind of time control loop that dynamically adjusts the satellite reference frequency according to the time difference. Consequently, the time synchronization in the cluster can be autonomously achieved on-orbit by synchronizing the clock of other satellites to a chosen one's. The experimental result shows that the standard deviation of time synchronization is about 102 ps when the carrier to noise ratio (CNR) is 95 dBHz, and the standard deviation of corresponding frequency difference is approximately 0.36 Hz.

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PROBA-3: Precise formation flying demonstration mission

Cited by 63 publications

References 1 publication

Architecture for in-space robotic assembly of a modular space telescope

Architecture for in-space robotic assembly of a modular space telescope

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

Approach to inter-satellite time synchronization for micro-satellite cluster

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