The increasing number of satellites in orbit around Earth drives the need for improved onboard space surveillance and tracking capabilities. Only thus, autonomous collision avoidance of and rendezvous and docking between small satellites will become feasible. With the PRecise IN-orbit Collision prediction and space Environment Surveillance System (PRINCESS) we propose an in-orbit demonstrator for small satellite space surveillance and tracking based on optical sensors. The PRINCESS space segment consists of three small satellites based on heritage satellite buses of TU Berlin. The larger of the spacecraft — dubbed mothership based on the QUEEN mission — will carry star trackers, thermal infrared cameras, and a LiDAR manufactured by Jena-Optronik GmbH. It is accompanied by two 3U CubeSats — dubbed free-flyers based on the NanoFF mission — that are able to perform relative maneuvers at the mothership and dock with it. Following orbit insertion the formation will begin first phase operations in the medium range regime. In a second phase the free-flyers will perform proximity operations and attempt docking to the mothership using a Gecko-inspired docking mechanism. In the final phase differential drag will be used to control the formation and demonstrate maximum detection range of the optical sensor suite.
PRecise IN-orbit Collision prediction and space Environment Surveillance System
Small Satellites Systems and Services Symposium (4S 2024) ; 2024 ; Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Proc. SPIE ; 13546 ; 1354647
2025-03-20
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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