The paper is devoted to the study of decentralized control using differential lift and drag for the construction and maintenance of the tetrahedral configuration. The most popular in the class of nanosatellites 3U CubeSats are considered. They have a suitable form-factor which let the cross-sectional area of satellites relative to the incoming airflow vary by a factor 3 depending on the attitude. The satellites are assumed to be subsequently deployed from the launcher. Each satellite is equipped with a reaction wheel-based attitude control system which allows to provide the required angular motion. Each satellite has also information about the relative state vector of all neighboring satellites provided by the inter-satellite communication or sensors of relative motion determination system. In this paper a decentralized control algorithm is developed which ensures the tracking of the relative reference trajectory. Due to this reference trajectory the satellites moves at the vertices of the tetrahedron. The possibility of constructing a tetrahedral configuration after deployment of the satellites depending on the initial conditions is studied.
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