Orion: A Micro Satellite Testbed for Formation Flying

A revolution in spacecraft guidance, navigation and control technology has started with GPS to autonomously provide spacecraft position, attitude and time information. This new technology is being applied to spacecraft constellations to achieve the precision formation flying required for many proposed science and commercial missions. These innovations will also result in significant reductions in weight, power consumption, and cost for future spacecraft attitude and orbit determination systems. Carrier-Phase Differential Global Positioning System (CDGPS) techniques can be used to autonomously track and then control the relative position and attitude between spacecraft. This sensing technology will enable the development of a virtual spacecraft bus where several spacecraft fly in close formation so that they can accomplish a common mission. This paper describes the capabilities being developed by merging the microsatellite and the CDGPS research at Stanford University. The focus of this cooperative laboratory effort at Stanford is on the Orion project, which will provide a low-cost microsatellite testbed to demonstrate precision formation flying.