From Single to Formation Flying CubeSats: An Update from the Delft Programme

This paper provides an update of the Delfi nanosatellite programme of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). The two completed missions, i.e. Delfi-C and Delfi-n3Xt, are briefly reviewed with their up-to-date results. The lessons learned from these two missions are also presented, focusing on three aspects: people, process, and design. An innovative development strategy for university satellite projects and a systematic approach for improving reliability are introduced. These lessons are applied to the ongoing DelFFi mission, where two CubeSats will perform autonomous formation flying. An update of the status of the DelFFi project is provided, and the enabling technologies for formation flying are described.

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