San Francisco – NASA extends the autonomy tests distributed for its first satellite swarm, Starling.
The first phase of the distributed space vessel autonomy program (DSA) was carried out on four Starling Cubeats From August 2023 to May 2024. The DSA allowed Starling satellites to collect data on the Earth ionosphere with on -board GPS receptors, to prioritize key observations, to share information and to coordinate the positions of satellites without human direction.
The additional instructions sent on February 6 will improve the scientific value of the mission.
“We have made technological demonstrations, but we will take scientific loyalty to show that you can make more and more difficult scientific calculations and make decisions on this subject,” said Caleb Adams, Director of the DSA program in NASA Ames Research Center, said SpaceNews.
Opportunistic science
NASA is impatient to push the limits of satellite autonomy to “allow a new type of scientific observations that were not possible before,” said Adams. “This allows opportunistic science and opportunistic observations,” said Adams.
During the exploration of Jupiter’s moons, for example, a satellite which detects a plume of gas rising from the surface could identify other satellites to make detailed observations.
“When we think of observing the phenomenon in the external solar system and especially in something like the icy worlds, there are scientific phenomena that have occurred so quickly that you could not have a human joystick like us, a rover “Said Adams.
Closer to their homes, autonomous satellites could coordinate the observation of natural disasters, alert other satellites of events and achieve a consensus on action.
The swarms are also resilient because the failure of a single satellite does not harm the mission, said Adams.
Common objectives
Last year, the DSA demonstrated “the first space mission distributed entirely autonomous,” said Adams. “We were able to set a high level goal for our swarm and leave this swarm and react to the environment.”
While many constellations work with a minimum control of soil controllers, Starling satellites “constantly decide what to do, producing action plans and performing these actions without expecting it,” said Adams.
When a satellite detects something that causes a change of plans, it updates other satellites in the swarm. Program managers originally thought that he could take a few minutes to all satellites to reach consensus after changes in the plans. Instead, it took between two and six seconds.