Enabling Spacecraft Formation Flying through Spaceborne GPS and Enhanced Automation Technologies

Formation Flying is quickly revolutionizing the way the space community conducts autonomous science missions around the Earth and in space. This technological revolution will provide new, innovative ways for this community to gather scientific information, share this information between space vehicles and the ground, and expedite the Human exploration of space. Once fully matured, this technology will result in swarms of space vehicles flying as a virtual platform and gathering significantly more and better science data than is possible today. Formation flying will be enabled through the development and deployment of spaceborne differential Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and through innovative spacecraft autonomy techniques. This paper provides an overview of the current status of NASA/DoD/Industry/University partnership to bring Formation Flying technology to the forefront as quickly as possible, the hurdles that need to be overcome to achieve the formation flying vision, and the team's approach to transfer this technology to space. It will also describe some of the formation flying testbeds, such as Orion, that are being developed to demonstrate and validate these innovative GPS sensing and formation control technologies.

[1]  Vikram Kapila,et al.  Adaptive nonlinear control of satellite formation flying , 1999 .

[2]  M. Mesbahi,et al.  Graphs, matrix inequalities, and switching for the formation flying control of multiple spacecraft , 1999, Proceedings of the 1999 American Control Conference (Cat. No. 99CH36251).

[3]  Timothy W. McLain,et al.  Fuel equalized retargeting for separated spacecraft interferometry , 1998, Proceedings of the 1998 American Control Conference. ACC (IEEE Cat. No.98CH36207).

[4]  Patrick A. Stadter,et al.  Interspacecraft communications architectures for formation flying , 1999 .

[5]  John L. Junkins,et al.  Non-Gaussian error propagation in orbital mechanics , 1996 .

[6]  Fred Y. Hadaegh,et al.  Adaptive Control of Formation Flying Spacecraft for Interferometry , 1998 .

[7]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  GPS Sensing for Spacecraft Formation Flying , 1997 .

[8]  Raymond J. Sedwick,et al.  Optimum aperture placement for a space-based radar system using separated spacecraft interferometry , 1999 .

[9]  J. Russell Carpenter,et al.  Integration of a Decentralized Linear-Quadratic-Gaussian Control into GSFC's Universal 3-D Autonomous Formation Flying Algorithm , 1999 .

[10]  Frank H. Bauer,et al.  Spaceborne GPS current status and future visions , 1998, 1998 IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.98TH8339).

[11]  Srinivas R. Vadali,et al.  Fuel Optimal Control for Formation Flying of Satellites , 1999 .

[12]  P. Wang,et al.  Synchronized Formation Rotation and Attitude Control of Multiple Free-Flying Spacecraft , 1997 .

[13]  David Quinn,et al.  A universal 3-D method for controlling the relative motion of multiple spacecraft in any orbit , 1998 .

[14]  G. Q. Xing,et al.  Implementation of autonomous GPS guidance and control for the spacecraft formation flying , 1999, Proceedings of the 1999 American Control Conference (Cat. No. 99CH36251).

[15]  Andrew G. Sparks,et al.  Spacecraft formation flying: dynamics and control , 1999, Proceedings of the 1999 American Control Conference (Cat. No. 99CH36251).

[16]  Robert J. Heins,et al.  Design of a GPS Tracking ASIC for Space Applications , 1999 .

[17]  H. Schaub,et al.  J2 Invariant Relative Orbits for Spacecraft Formations , 2001 .

[18]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  Orion - A low-cost demonstration of formation flying in space using GPS , 1998 .

[19]  Raymond J. Sedwick,et al.  Exploiting orbital dynamics and micropropulsion for aperture synthesis using distributed satellite systems - Applications to TechSat21 , 1998 .

[20]  David W. Miller,et al.  Optimization of separated spacecraft interferometer trajectories in the absence of a gravity well , 1998, Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation.

[21]  Frank H. Bauer,et al.  SATELLITE FORMATION FLYING USING AN INNOVATIVE AUTONOMOUS CONTROL SYSTEM (AUTOCON) ENVIRONMENT , 1997 .

[22]  P. Wang,et al.  Coordination and control of multiple microspacecraft moving in formation , 1996 .

[23]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  3D Formation Flight Using Differential Carrier-Phase GPS Sensors , 1999 .

[24]  Patrick A. Stadter,et al.  A GPS Formation Flying Testbed for theModeling and Simulation of Multiple Spacecraft , 1999 .

[25]  F. Y. Hadaegh,et al.  Formation Flying Control of Multiple Spacecraft , 1997 .

[26]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  Formation control strategies for a separated spacecraft interferometer , 1999, Proceedings of the 1999 American Control Conference (Cat. No. 99CH36251).

[27]  Lauri Kraft Newman,et al.  Foundations of formation flying for Mission to Planet Earth and New Millennium , 1996 .

[28]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  Onboard Pseudolite Augmentation System for Relative Navigation , 1999 .

[29]  Mehran Mesbahi,et al.  Formation flying control of multiple spacecraft - Graph theoretic properties and switching schemes , 1999 .

[30]  K. Lau,et al.  AN INNOVATIVE DEEP SPACE APPLICATION OF GPS TECHNOLOGY FOR FORMATION FLYING SPACECRAFT , 1996 .

[31]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  Spacecraft formation flying control design for the Orion mission , 1999 .

[32]  Jonathan P. How,et al.  Formation sensing and control technologies for a separated spacecraft interferometer , 1998, Proceedings of the 1998 American Control Conference. ACC (IEEE Cat. No.98CH36207).

[33]  Kurt Zimmerman,et al.  Technologies for Spacecraft Formation Flying , 1999 .