Session
Technical Session VI: Formation Flying And Large Scale Interferometry
Abstract
The Orion microsatellite project is funded by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The goals of the project are to demonstrate determination of position and attitude of spacecraft in a formation using carrier phase differential GPS, and closed loop autonomous control of the formation. The mission is designed so it can be performed with a constellation of three or more Orion spacecraft, or a constellation of one Orion spacecraft and the Emerald spacecraft. The spacecraft are designed and built by the Formation Flying Laboratory and the Space Systems Development Laboratory, both at Stanford. The Orion spacecraft will build on the heritage of prior Stanford satellites: Sapphire and Opal. The bus will be cube shaped, 0.5 meters on the side. The command and data handler is the SpaceQuest CPU, based on the NEC V-53 microprocessor. In addition there will be another StrongARM based CPU performing mission specific, CPU intensive calculations. This second CPU could be combined with the GPS computer. The Orion spacecraft will use a cold-gas propulsion system, using Nitrogen gas. The onboard propellant will provide 40 mls delta V. Kiraly, Engberg, Busse, Prof. Twiggs and How Magnetic torquer coils will be used for detumbling after deployment. The subsystems will be connected using an 12C serial data bus. The GPS receiver and computer is in development at Stanford. A single Orion spacecraft is slated to fly with the University Nanosatellite mission.
The Orion Microsatellite: A Demonstration of Formation Flying In Orbit
The Orion microsatellite project is funded by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The goals of the project are to demonstrate determination of position and attitude of spacecraft in a formation using carrier phase differential GPS, and closed loop autonomous control of the formation. The mission is designed so it can be performed with a constellation of three or more Orion spacecraft, or a constellation of one Orion spacecraft and the Emerald spacecraft. The spacecraft are designed and built by the Formation Flying Laboratory and the Space Systems Development Laboratory, both at Stanford. The Orion spacecraft will build on the heritage of prior Stanford satellites: Sapphire and Opal. The bus will be cube shaped, 0.5 meters on the side. The command and data handler is the SpaceQuest CPU, based on the NEC V-53 microprocessor. In addition there will be another StrongARM based CPU performing mission specific, CPU intensive calculations. This second CPU could be combined with the GPS computer. The Orion spacecraft will use a cold-gas propulsion system, using Nitrogen gas. The onboard propellant will provide 40 mls delta V. Kiraly, Engberg, Busse, Prof. Twiggs and How Magnetic torquer coils will be used for detumbling after deployment. The subsystems will be connected using an 12C serial data bus. The GPS receiver and computer is in development at Stanford. A single Orion spacecraft is slated to fly with the University Nanosatellite mission.
