Spaceborne Autonomous Relative Control System for Dual Satellite Formations

摘要

Autonomous formation flight is a technical challenge of great interest for many scientific missions. Among othernapplications, the design of synthetic apertures is a promising benefit of using distributed spacecraft. Even ifnnumerous studies exist in the literature, the formation flying concepts and applications were until now ratherntheoretical. The TanDEM-X Autonomous Formation Flying system presented in this paper will be implemented innthe upcoming TanDEM-X mission and contributes as such to increase the readiness level of this technology. Thenpaper focuses on the design of a guidance, navigation, and control system enabling the autonomous relative control ofntwo spacecraft flying on near-circular orbits. Emphasis is given to the practical implementation within an onboardnembedded computer, which requires a simple, resource-sparing, and robust design of the system. Therefore, thenalgorithms are tailored to minimize the usage of onboard resources and to allow the harmonious integration of thenrelative control system within the space segment. The validation of TanDEM-X Autonomous Formation Flyingnperformed using a hardware-in-the-loop testbed shows that control performance at the meter level is expected.