Ricerc@Sapienza

The ability of a spacecraft formation to maintain a stable relative geometry is often critical to the success of the mission. Typical optimal path planning and control algorithms, aimed to minimize the effort and indeed the consumption, have been revisited for the case of a triangular formation. The constraints coming from col-lision risk avoidance during the maneuver and from a maximum allowed inter-satellite distance to preserve the formation links are considered together with the typical requirement of configuration stability.

According to later reports there are more than 18000 artificial satellites in space, with more than 35000 objects larger than 10cm and another million objects large enough to cause serious damage to the satellites. With so many potentially dangerous objects in an orbit around the surface of the earth, a collision-avoidance system becomes often necessary. This problem is of greater concern with the ever-increasing number of satellites that are being planned with multiple new projects involving large constellations.

Most of the current formation flying systems are
intended to work in a single, stable orbital configuration
acquired shortly after the launch. However, the formation flying
concept lends itself to be used in a flexible manner, by
introducing the possibility of changing the relative
configuration of the platforms, i.e. to reconfigure the formation.
Instead of maintaining a single relative geometry, the change in
configuration helps to achieve multiple objectives. Several
examples of missions gaining from a reconfiguration capability