AUTONOMOUS RENDEZVOUS EXPERIMENTS ON THE PRISMA IN-ORBIT FORMATION FLYING TEST BED

摘要

The in-orbit test bed PRISMA, will demonstrate Guidance, Navigation, and Control strategies for autonomous formation flying and rendezvous. The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) is the prime contractor for the project which is funded by the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB). The space segment consists of two spacecraft: MAIN and TARGET. The MAIN satellite has full orbit control capability while TARGET is attitude controlled only. PRISMA will perform a series of GNC related formation flying and rendezvous experiments. SSC is the overall responsible for the GNC system of the two spacecraft and will perform three main sets of experiments: Autonomous Formation Flying, Proximity Operations and Final Approach/Recede Manoeuvres, and Autonomous Rendezvous. This paper focuses on the Autonomous Rendezvous (ARV) experiment and describes the approach taken and the GNC functions used to implement the ARV capability.