On-Board Relative Guidance for Swarm Missions Near Collinear Libration Points
Abstract
The potential use of small satellites (SmallSats) to comprise swarms and formations has gained interest in recent years due to the low SWaP attributes they offer. However, these same benefits also present challenges, including for-mation/maintenance of the relative positions and attitudes of the members of the swarm. Here a relative guidance method is developed for onboard use in close proximity formation flying at collinear libration points. The method utilizes a two-level differential corrector with the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem. The focus is on developing an autonomous relative guidance solution maintaining formation flight that can be implemented onboard SmallSats within their SWaP limitations. A preliminary example of a swarm in the vicinity of the Earth-Moon L2 point is studied and presented. In addition, future work and analysis is proposed to expand the method making it applicable to a range of missions.
Recommended Citation
D. Jennings and H. Pernicka, "On-Board Relative Guidance for Swarm Missions Near Collinear Libration Points," Advances in the Astronautical Sciences, vol. 175, pp. 4135 - 4147, Springer, Jan 2021.
Department(s)
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
978-087703675-3
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0065-3438
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2024 Springer, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Jan 2021
Comments
Zonta International Foundation, Grant None