Project: STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry (STARI)

The STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry (STARI) mission is a technology demonstration designed to advance key technologies for future space-based interferometry. It consists of two 6U CubeSats flying in close formation, effectively simulating one arm of an interferometer. STARI will, for the first time, successfully demonstrate the reflection and beam transfer of starlight from one spacecraft to another, as well as its injection into a single-mode optical fiber.

The project is developed by a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional team, with the University of Michigan responsible for the payload, communications, and ground segment; Stanford handling formation trajectory design and the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) system; Georgia Tech providing the propulsion system; Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) contributing to system-level design; and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) focusing on the fiber injection module.

The trajectory and GNC design, developed at the Space Rendezvous Laboratory (SLAB), builds upon the extensive flight heritage of missions such as GRACE, TANDEM-X, PRISMA, and STARLING, as well as future missions like VISORS and SWARM-EX.

STARI's main challenges stem from the unprecedented accuracy and stability required for successful starlight transmission, while also dealing within the limited resources available on board.

Related Publications

Monnier, J.D., Jain, P., Kalluri, S., Cutler, J., D'Amico, S., Lightsey, G., Pogorelyuk, L., Vasisht, G., Cahoy, K. and Meyer, M.;
STARI: STarlight Acquisition and Reflection toward Interferometry; 
SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2024, Yokohama, Japan