As we are approaching the kick-off of the STARI formation flying interferometry mission led by John Monnier at the University of Michigan, I would like to share some exciting results obtained at the Stanford Space Rendezvous Laboratory on the preliminary design of the novel multi-satellite Orbit Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) system.
STARI represents one arm of a space-based interferometer in LEO. As shown in the videos below and in the comments, the starlight acquired by the chief spacecraft is reflected by means of a tilting mirror to the deputy spacecraft that is oscillating in cross-direction at a distance of about 100m in along-track direction. Precise alignment performed by means of differential GPS and LED tracking allows to achieve fiber injection on the deputy demonstrating a key component for future interferometric missions. The GNC design is intended to enable high duty cycle with minimum station keeping cost and passive safety exploiting the natural relative orbit motion in combination with a clever choice of the observed target stars. The outcome is a modular and flexible pipeline that allows to easily define desired regions in the sky where to perform direct observation of exoplanets via nulling interferometry. We consider the GNC system of STARI as the evolution of the GNC system of the VISORS mission which is currently in the integration and testing phase.
Acknowledgements go to NASA for the sponsorship and to our other partner institutions including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The formation-flying design and video are the result of the excellent work of PostDoc Antonio Rizza, and PhD students Ethan Foss, Prachet Jain.
