A methodology is presented for the differential drag control of a large fleet of propulsionless satellites deployed in the same orbit. The controller places satellites into a constellation with specified angular offsets and zero relative speed. Time-optimal phasing is achieved by first determining an appropriate relative placement because the satellites are interchangeable. A second optimization problem is then solved as a large coupled system to find the drag command profile required for each satellite. The control authority is the available ratio of low-drag to high-drag ballistic coefficients of the satellites given realistic operational constraints. The controller is able to successfully phase constellations with up to 100 satellites in simulations. On-orbit performance of the controller is demonstrated by phasing Planet Labs’s Flock 2p constellation of 12 CubeSats, launched in June 2016, into a 510 km sun-synchronous orbit.


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    Title :

    Constellation Phasing with Differential Drag on Planet Labs Satellites


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2018-03-01




    Type of media :

    Conference paper , Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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