Program Goal

Develop critical technologies (architectures, methodologies, hardware and software components) for precision control of collaborative distributed spacecraft systems, enabling a new class of mission architecture with the potential of achieving unprecedented science performance.

Technical Objectives

• Develop a system of methods, architectures, algorithms and software for autonomous precision control (mm-cm, arcsec-arcmin) of constellations, fleets and formation flying spacecraft.
  • Formation guidance algorithms for robust/efficient formation initialization.
  • Demonstrate integrated FF guidance & control algorithms in an end-to-end visual  demonstration of formation maneuvers, in a distributed simulation environment
• Develop a high precision metrology system with nanometer resolution and multi-kilometer ambiguity range.
  • A high-precision, high-dynamic range, flight-qualifiable interferometric absolute metrology gauge using Modulation Sideband Technology for Absolute Ranging (MSTAR) that will bridge the gap between the existing fine and coarseregions  and therefore enable ranging accuracy 4 orders of magnitude better than the current state-of-the-art
• Develop architectures, algorithms and software for high-fidelity and real-time simulation of formation flying missions (HYDRA).  Infuse into missions for development and testing of flight control algorithms, flight software, and mission concepts.
  • Demonstrate hierarchical, multi-timescale simulation in a distributed environment.  Infuse HYDRA technology into TPF/FAST testbed.
  • Demonstrate time-warp capability for extended mission segment analysis.  Demonstrate real-time capability.