Project: Space Weather Atmospheric Reconfigurable Multiscale Experiment (SWARM-EX)

The Space Weather Atmospheric Reconfigurable Multiscale Experiment (SWARM-EX) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored CubeSat mission distributed across six colleges and universities in the United States. The project has three primary goals:

1. Contributing to aeronomy and space weather knowledge.
2. Demonstrating novel engineering technology.
3. Advancing higher education.

The scientific focus of SWARM-EX is to study the spatial and temporal variability of ion-neutral interactions in the equatorial Ionosphere-Thermosphere (I-T) region. Since the mission consists of three spacecraft operating in a swarm, SWARM-EX will take in-situ measurements of the neutral and ion composition on timescales of less than an orbital period to study the persistence and correlation between different phenomena in the I-T region. The engineering objectives of SWARM-EX are focused on advancing the state of the art in spacecraft formation flying. In addition to being the first passively safe, autonomous formation of more than two spacecraft, SWARM-EX will demonstrate several other key innovations contributed by SLAB, such as a novel Guidance, Navigation and Control algorithm that exploits a hybrid propulsive and differential drag control scheme for fuel-efficient formation control, thus enabling the realization of a distributed aeronomy sensor efficiently.

Related Publications

Hunter, M., D'Amico, S.;
Fast Algorithm for Fuel-Optimal Constrained ImpulsiveControl with Application to Satellite Swarming;
IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, 2025.

Hunter, M., D'Amico, S.;
Robust Closed-form Framework for Drag-Propulsive Control of Formation Flight;  
IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Montana, March 2-9, 2024.

Lowe, S., Fitzpatrick, D., Buynovskiy, A., Shoemaker, L., Palo, S., D'Amico, S.;             
Concept of Operations for SWARM-EX: a Three CubeSat Formation-Flying Mission;  
IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, Montana, March 2-9, 2024.

Hunter, M., D'Amico, S.;                                
Closed-form Optimal Propulsive-Differential Drag Control for Large Reconfigurations of Spacecraft Swarms;                    
2023 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, Big Sky, Montana, August 13-17, 2023.

Lowe, S., D'Amico, S.;                                
Reduced-Order Model for Spacecraft Swarm Orbit Design;                                
33rd AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting, Austin, TX, January 15-19, 2023.

Agarwal, R., Oh, B., Fitzpatrick, D., Buynovskiy, A., Lowe, S., Lisy, C., Kriezis, A., Lan, B., Lee, Z., Thomas, A., Wallace, B., Costantino, E., Miner, G., Thayer, J., D’Amico, S., Lemmer, K., Lohmeyer, W., Palo, S.;
Coordinating Development of the SWARM-EX CubeSat Swarm Across Multiple Institutions ;
35th Annual Conference on Small Satellites, Utah State University, August 7-12 (2021).