Satellite formation flying using an innovative autonomous control system (AutoCon) environment

Abstract

This paper describes the formation of a partnership between two competing technologies with very different approaches to the problem of enhanced formation flying (EFF) on the New Millennium Program (NMP) Earth Orbiter (EO)-l mission. This includes a brief description of the two approaches that were independently proposed by the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)/Stanford University and JPL teams. The actual mission combines these two approaches within a single autonomous control architecture called AutoCon™. The software is designed so that a control mode switch can be set by the ground flight operations team to invoke either EFF algorithm. The advantage of this approach is that both EFF technologies can be incorporated onboard EO-1 within the AutoCon™ framework. In addition, the details of each proposed algorithm need not be divulged provided that the algorithms conform to the specifications of AutoCon™. Forming a partnership between two competing technologies represents a significant programmatic challenge. This paper discusses the programmatic issues and several of the technologies that have been developed to perform the EFF mission. In the process, several recommendations are provided that should streamline similar partnerships on future NMP missions.