DESIGN AND CONTROL OF FORMATION FLYING SYSTEMS FOR REMOTE SENSING MISSIONS WITH ELECTRIC PROPULSION

摘要

The increasing number of European Earth Observationrnprogrammes and missions has brought to the fore thernneed for an assessment of innovative concepts to copernwith the requirements and the implementation ofrnRemote Sensing (RS) mission scenarios. Within therninnovative concepts, formation flying (FF) emerges as arnkey option to deal with missions that require two orrnmore satellites arranged in a dedicated configurationrnand relatively controlled, so as to synthesise arnmeasurement baseline for RS applications. In thisrncontext, the exploitation of the maturing ElectricrnPropulsion (EP) technology can bring tangiblernadvantages to complex orbital configurations thatrntypically impose severe requirements on the propulsionrnsystem in terms of controllability, specific impulse,rnthrust fine-throttling and power-to-thrust ratio.rnThis paper presents a comprehensive overview of thernanalyses of Interferometric SAR (InSAR) and GravityrnFF Mission Scenarios with EP based on numericalrnsimulations covering formation design and GNC issues.rnThe results obtained allow the assessment of therntechnical feasibility and the effectiveness of using EPrnsystems to support FF-based RS missions.