Nanosatellite constellations control framework using evolutionary contact plant design and command architecture flight software

Space agencies, educational institutions, and private companies have adopted CubeSat nanosatellites to do scientific research, training, technology demonstration, and space-based industries in the New Space era. The next step in this changing space sector corresponds to the assembly and operation of...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Gonzalez, Carlos Eduardo
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:Chile
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.anid.cl:10533/253175
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10533/253175
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ingeniería y Tecnología
Ingeniería Eléctrica, Ingeniería Electrónica, Informática
Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica
Descripción
Sumario:Space agencies, educational institutions, and private companies have adopted CubeSat nanosatellites to do scientific research, training, technology demonstration, and space-based industries in the New Space era. The next step in this changing space sector corresponds to the assembly and operation of large satellite constellations consisting of hundreds or thou- sands of small- or nanosatellites. This context adds new requirements and challenges to the production and operation lines of these space projects. This work focuses on the agile ope- ration of a large nanosatellite constellation with inter-satellite communications. This work proposes utilizing the constellation contact topology to design contact plans using evolutio- nary algorithms and contact plan information to control the constellation operations. The contact plan is then used to create a Global Flight Plan table that summarizes all the ope- rations required to execute a proposed task. Thus, satellites and ground station nodes only need flight software capable of queuing, executing, and transferring Flight Plan commands. This work presents the design and implementation of the complete system and case studies to validate framework functioning with constellations up to 1000 nodes. The evolutionary contact plan design approach shows promising scalability results opening the possibility of controlling satellite mega constellation of hundreds or thousands of nanosatellites.