NASA Satellite Swarm Does Things No Other Satellite Swarm Has Done Before, More to Come

The future of space exploration, as complicated as it seems to be getting, will need novel approaches if it is to succeed. One of them is the use of constellations of autonomous satellites that can work together for a common goal. And that goal can be anything from deep space exploration to planetary surveys.

Unlike individual satellites and spacecraft, which rely heavily on orders received from Earth through a generally lengthy communication process, autonomous swarms could work somewhat independently: they could make their own way through space, handle scientific experiments without interference, and even respond to changes in their environment on their own.

And that's exactly what the Starling CubeSat spacecraft set out to do ten months ago, using a series of onboard pieces of hardware. Now, after all of them have been put through their paces, NASA says the mission "successfully demonstrated its primary […] key objectives," making history in the process.

For one, Starling is now the first satellite swarm to "autonomously distribute information and operations data between spacecraft to generate plans to work more efficiently." The ships did that using a technology called Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA), which aimed at optimizing data collection.

In words we can all understand, the CubeSats that are part of the mission analyzed our planet's ionosphere and together came to a consensus on how best to go about analyzing the phenomena that were detected. In reaching that consensus, the mission also became the first to demo "a fully distributed onboard reasoning system capable of reacting quickly to changes in scientific observations."

A second onboard experiment, the Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET), helped establish a network in orbit. The swarm used this network to transmit commands and transfer data between its members and the ground. Routing commands and sending data to a faulty satellite in the swarm were also performed.

Third on the list but no less important is the Starling Formation-Flying Optical Experiment (StarFOX). This tool helped the swarm recognize its members by using star trackers and differentiating human-made objects from the background that is space. Not only did the system recognize its component spacecraft, but it was also capable of estimating their position and speed.

This is the first time a piece of technology proved it can track multiple members of a swarm at the same time. It is also the first time such a system did this using "only inter-satellite measurements from the spacecraft star trackers."

Last but not least a tool called Reconfiguration and Orbit Maintenance Experiments Onboard (ROMEO) was used to put to the test maneuver planning and execution of an orbital altitude change, and that seems to have worked perfectly as well. In a nutshell, ROMEO helped Starling determine and plan a change in orbit, but further tests are needed to understand the full scope of capabilities.

Now that the primary objectives of the mission have been met, NASA plans an even daring step in the near future: it will integrate the Starling with SpaceX's Starlink to test space traffic coordination.

If it works, the test will give us humans a better understanding of how satellite swarms made by various companies and agencies can share info to avoid collisions.