Potentials and Limitations of CDMA Networks for Combined Inter-Satellite Communication and Relative Navigation

Precision formation flying missions require formation acquisition and maintenance through the interactions among spacecraft by the inter-satellite communication and relative navigation. This paper analyses the dedicated system constraints of the network architecture for precision formation flying missions. The critical time issue and the...

Characterizing Network Architecture for Inter-satellite Communication and Relative Navigation in Precise Formation Flying

Precise formation flying (PFF) missions require formation acquisition and maintenance through interactions among spacecraft by inter-satellite communication and relative navigation. That requires the network architecture to satisfy dedicated system constraints of time-criticality for updating navigation measurements and flexibility for...

Fractionated spacecraft: The new sprout in distributed space systems

This paper provides a survey of current state-of-the-art technologies of fractionated spacecraft, a new architecture for distributed space systems. The survey covers six aspects: architecture, networking, wireless communication, wireless power transfer, distributed computing, and planned missions implementing this architecture. As a result of...

Status of the fast mission: Micro-satellite formation flying for technology, science and education

FAST (Formation for Atmospheric Science and Technology demonstration) is a cooperative Dutch Chinese formation flying mission led by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands and Tsinghua University in China. It is expected to be the first international micro-satellite formation flying mission to achieve objectives in three...

Conceptual Design of the FAST-D Formation Flying Spacecraft

The paper presents the latest results in the design of FAST-D, the Dutch micro-satellite for the Dutch–Chinese FAST (Formation for Atmospheric Science and Technology demonstration) formation flying mission. Over the course of the 2.5 year mission, the two satellites, FAST-D and FAST-T, will demonstrate various new technologies and perform...

Mission Design of the Dutch-Chinese FAST Micro-Satellite Mission

The paper treats the mission design for the Dutch-Chinese FAST (Formation for Atmospheric Science and Technology demonstration) mission. The space segment of the 2.5 year mission consists out of two formation flying micro-satellites. During the mission, new technologies will be demonstrated and, using spectropolarimeter and altimeter payloads on...