The FASTRAC Mission: Operations Summary and Preliminary Experiment Results

• Main Authors: Muñoz, Sebastián, Greenbaum, Jamin, Lightsey, Glenn, Campbell, Thomas, Stewart, Shaun, Holt, Greg
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 2011
• Subjects: Austin; Kodiak; Alaska
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2011/all2011/24; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=smallsat

The FASTRAC (Formation Autonomy Spacecraft with Thrust, Relnav, Attitude and Crosslink) satellites were placed into orbit on November 19, 2010 from Kodiak, Alaska as part of the Space Test Program STP-S26 launch. FASTRAC uses a pair of nanosatellites which were built by students from The University of Texas at Austin participating in the University Nanosatellite Program for less than $230k in total program hardware costs. The FASTRAC mission objectives are: 1) demonstrate two-way inter-satellite crosslink with verified data exchange, 2) perform on-orbit real-time GPS relative navigation between the satellites, and 3) demonstrate autonomous thruster firing using single-antenna on-orbit real-time GPS attitude determination. During the initial checkout period of the mission, the satellites successfully demonstrated a functional crosslink and GPS data exchange capability in a stacked configuration. On March 22, 2011 the satellites were successfully separated on orbit, marking the start of the freely drifting on-orbit real time relative navigation phase of the mission. To date the GPS receivers of both satellites have been able to obtain on-orbit real-time position and attitude solutions. During the first six months of operations the satellites have been monitored continuously and have remained healthy. Results from the preliminary post-processed navigation and health data are presented in the paper. Along with these results, some of the challenges faced and lessons learned during the first six months of operations are also discussed. With the help of the amateur radio community, the operations team has been able to collect more than 6000 beacons from the satellites.