All 2015 Content
Session
Technical Session IX: Education
Abstract
The Georgia Institute of Technology Prox-1 mission is an ESPA-class, student-designed, student-built satellite mission designed to demonstrate automated relative trajectory control in conjunction with a semi-cooperative target in Low-Earth Orbit. It is scheduled for launch in September of 2016 aboard the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP-2) mission as a secondary payload. The primary mission of the spacecraft is to perform flight qualification and performance validation of experimental flight hardware; to deploy The Planetary Society’s LightSail mission, an internally housed 3U cubesat; and to perform relative trajectory control with respect to that target utilizing passive thermal imaging and automated on-board guidance algorithms. Several subsystems are integrated to accomplish this mission, and a description of the subsystem components is detailed in this paper. An overview of the concept operations is also presented here. For the automated proximity operations phase of the mission, Prox-1 will demonstrate an advanced Guidance, Navigation, & Control subsystem. This subsystem will combine GN&C algorithms and filters developed in-house and based on reference literature. This paper will provide an overview of the Prox-1 mission and the advancements it brings to the small satellite community.
Presentation
Prox-1: Automated Proximity Operations on an ESPA Class Platform
The Georgia Institute of Technology Prox-1 mission is an ESPA-class, student-designed, student-built satellite mission designed to demonstrate automated relative trajectory control in conjunction with a semi-cooperative target in Low-Earth Orbit. It is scheduled for launch in September of 2016 aboard the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP-2) mission as a secondary payload. The primary mission of the spacecraft is to perform flight qualification and performance validation of experimental flight hardware; to deploy The Planetary Society’s LightSail mission, an internally housed 3U cubesat; and to perform relative trajectory control with respect to that target utilizing passive thermal imaging and automated on-board guidance algorithms. Several subsystems are integrated to accomplish this mission, and a description of the subsystem components is detailed in this paper. An overview of the concept operations is also presented here. For the automated proximity operations phase of the mission, Prox-1 will demonstrate an advanced Guidance, Navigation, & Control subsystem. This subsystem will combine GN&C algorithms and filters developed in-house and based on reference literature. This paper will provide an overview of the Prox-1 mission and the advancements it brings to the small satellite community.
