Formation flying satellites

For scientists, this is of huge interest for the discovery of planetary and solar bursts in other solar systems and obtaining a tomographic view of space weather.

Gomes predicts that formation-flying satellites could also be important in space warfare. ’When your enemy is trying to interfere with your equipment, if you have distributed systems it becomes much more difficult. You can also leave your system operating in a loose formation and only bring it together when it’s needed. That reduces the perceived threat the enemy will not realise what the distributed system is until it’s formed and operating.’

“When your enemy is trying to interfere with your equipment, if you have distributed systems it becomes much more difficult”

One issue with developing formation-flying satellites is the power required to maintain formation. Dr Mini Saaj at the Surrey Space Centre is looking at the use of hybrid electric propulsion systems to help solve this problem. The system would scavenge electromagnetic power from drifting space plasma or the Earth’s magnetosphere to maintain position and reduce on-board power requirements. ’I’m also interested in how swarms can be shaped into formations while avoiding collisions,’ she said. ’Techniques borrowed from terrestrial robotics, such as artificial potential fields, could help steer the system.’ Like the OLFAR project, this approach would look to the natural world to animal swarms and herds using shared rules to direct flexible group behaviour.