Starling1 Spacecraft

Test technologies for affordable, distributed spacecraft (“swarm”) missions.

Test technologies required to achieve affordable, distributed spacecraft (“swarm”) missions. focus on developing technologies that enable scalability and deep space application.

The mission goals include the demonstration of a Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork (MANET) through an in-space communication experiment and vision based relative navigation through the Starling Formation-flying Optical eXperiment (StarFOX).

Test multiple distributed mission technologies, including in-space networking scalable to hundreds of spacecraft, autonomous reactive operations that allow the spacecraft to reconfigure in response to external sensor data, and an optical relative navigation experiment from Stanford University. Distributed systems of small spacecraft can provide cost-effective multi-point science data collection, communications, monitoring and inspection infrastructure in Earth orbit and at exploration destinations beyond.

The distributed navigation system uses only star-tracker cameras installed on-board each nanosatellite to track the other satellites of the swarm using novel angles-only navigation techniques. Full swarm navigation is obtained without using orbit control maneuvers to improve observability, without range information, without GPS. The navigation system foresees several advanced modes of operations, including absolute orbit determination, and multi-observer navigation using the intersatellite link to exchange angle measurements.

NASA’s Starling mission accomplished a significant objective for the StarFOX (Starling Formation-Flying Optical Experiment) experiment, a test of autonomous navigation, co-location, and situational awareness in space.

Using downlinked images from onboard “star tracker” sensors, the team used ground-based software to demonstrate StarFOX’s ability to autonomously differentiate the background field of stars and other orbiting spacecraft from fellow members of the Starling swarm.

The spacecraft captured one photo every minute, and despite inconsistencies in illumination and minimal relative motion, the software was able to use the angular positions of the other Starling satellites within those images to estimate their orbits accurately with respect to GPS measurements captured during the test.
The next step is to demonstrate this software in orbit with similar results, autonomously correcting orbit predictions over time as each photo provides more data about the trajectory of spacecraft in the swarm.

StarFOX is being led by the Stanford University’s Space Rendezvous Laboratory.