Autonomous navigation of a formation of spacecraft in the proximity of a binary asteroid

Torre, Francesco and Vasile, Massimiliano and Serra, Romain and Grey, Stuart (2017) Autonomous navigation of a formation of spacecraft in the proximity of a binary asteroid. In: International Symposium on Space Technology and Science, 2017-06-03 - 2017-06-09.

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Abstract

The paper presents a study on the navigation of a formation of spacecraft in the proximity of a binary asteroid. A specific scenario is considered in which the spacecraft are orbiting at one of the triangular libration points under the assumption of a quasi circular orbit of the secondary with respect to the primary. This work investigates the use of an Unscented H in f ty Filter and a data sharing mechanisms among spacecraft, plus the use of a novel polynomial algebra to replace the Unscented Transformation. The paper will show that the spacecraft can be maintained at the desired location using a combination of optical and LIDAR measurements shared across the formation.