Nanosatellites

16 I-3ePrecise, Autonomous Formation Flight at Low Cost

Niels Roth Ben Risi Robert E. Zee Grant Bonin Scott Armitage and Josh Newman

Space Flight Laboratory (SFL), UTIAS, Toronto, Canada

16.1 Introduction

The use of multiple autonomously coordinated spacecraft, often—though not necessarily—in close proximity to one another, is a critical capability to the future of spaceflight. Formation flight applications range from synthetic aperture radar and optical interferometry, to on-orbit servicing of other spacecraft, and to gravitational and magnetic field science. Groups of small, relatively simple spacecraft can also potentially replace single large and complex ones, reducing risk through distribution of instruments, and cost by leveraging nonrecurring engineering costs. Performance of the entire formation can be gradually built up over several launches, maintained over time with replacement units when others fail, or allowed to degrade gracefully.

The benefits of formation flight are best realized as the size of spacecraft decreases, nanosatellites being the foremost example. These spacecraft are cost-effective, easily mass-produced, and capable of being deployed en masse from a single launch. Nanosatellite technology has already matured to the point where this is possible. However, there had been no successful demonstrations of formation flight with spacecraft of this scale prior to CanX-4 and CanX-5. With their success, CanX-4 and CanX-5 have paved the way for these miniaturized ...