To maximize the profitability of modern satellites, designers must invest their spacecraft with both capability and reliability. On-board, autonomous software holds the promise of greatly enhancing spacecraft abilities, yet software glitches have been directly to blame for recent, highly publicized failures. This paper presents the flightsoftware development framework created for the Generalize...

A DSP Embedded Optical Navigation System. (May 2003) Kiran Kumar Gunnam, B.Tech., Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Co-Chairs of Advisory Committee: Dr. John L. Junkins Dr. Nasser Kehtarnavaz Spacecraft missions such as spacecraft docking and formation flying require high precision relative position and attitude data. Although Global Positioining Systems can provide this capability near...

This paper investigates an adaptive coordinated control problem of spacecraft formation flying (SFF) system subject to uncertain mass and external perturbations. First, a general unified structure is proposed represent the adjustable performance functions like exponentially appointed-time convergent ones. Then, controller developed based on two-layer envelope characterize transient steady-state...

The Orbital Express Demonstration System (OEDS) flight test, flown from March to July 2007, achieved all of its mission objectives, demonstrating a suite of capabilities required to autonomously service satellites on-orbit. Demonstrations were performed at varying levels of autonomy, from operations with pause points where approval from ground was required to continue, to fully autonomous opera...

Space missions have evolved considerably in the last fifty years in both complexity and ambition. In order to enable this continued improvement in the scientific and commercial return of space missions new control systems are needed that can manage complex combinations of state of the art hardware with a minimum of human interaction. Distributed multi-agent systems are one approach to controlli...

An Autonomous Science Agent, part of the New Millennium Space Technology 6 Project is currently flying onboard the Earth Observing One (EO-1) Spacecraft. This software enables the spacecraft to autonomously detect and respond to science events occurring on the Earth. The package includes software systems that perform science data analysis, deliberative planning, and run-time robust execution. T...

An Autonomous Science Agent is currently flying onboard the Earth Observing One Spacecraft. With this software the spacecraft autonomously detects and responds to science events occurring on the Earth including volcanoes, flooding, and cryophere. The package includes software systems that perform science data analysis, deliberative planning, and run-time robust execution. This autonomy software...

The advent of spacecraft mobile robots—free-flying sensor platforms and communications devices intended to accompany astronauts or remotely operate on space missions both inside and outside of a spacecraft—has demanded the development of a simple and effective navigation schema. One such system under exploration involves the use of a laser-camera arrangement to predict relative positioning of t...