Space | 18. July 2012

DLR demonstrates rendezvous using GPS and Optical Navigation

DLR’s Advanced Rendezvous demonstration using GPS and Optical Navigation (ARGON) has been successfully executed during the PRISMA mission in the time frame April 23-27, 2012. The ARGON experiment demonstrated a long-range rendezvous to a non-cooperative target by means of angles-only measurements. Starting from more than 30 km distance, the active Mango s/c approached the passive Tango s/c to reach a 3 km safe hold-point within five days of ground-based operations. read more

Other | 17. April 2012

Resuming Activities for PRISMA

A long time has passed since the last Blog entry. After return of the PRISMA formation to the Swedish Mission Control Center in Solna in August last year, several reports were generated and data evaluated, but we still had an unfinished business with PRISMA. One interesting experiment, which could not be performed during the GSOC operations phase, was still outstanding. read more

Space | 16. August 2011

PRISMA Mission Control returned to Sweden

After more than 5 months of successful flight operations by GSOC, the operational control was re-handed over again to the control center in Solna, Sweden. Since handover to GSOC in March this year, various experiments could be performed. My colleagues already reported corresponding details within the Blog. I’ll now try to describe the topic of a satellite mission handover. read more

Other | 11. May 2011

Inuvik Ground Station in Use for PRISMA

Antenne der Bodenstation Inuvik

The DLR ground station Inuvik is used for the PRISMA flight operations since April 18th 2011. The technical and administrative preparations were pushed forward for the last two months in order to provide a favorable alternative for the project. read more

Other | 09. May 2011

Proximity Experiments using the VBS Close Range Camera

Satellites flying in specific formation during proximity operations are relying on an accurately determined position. So far PRISMA has been relying on GPS for navigation. On 21st of April and from 2nd to 4th of May several proximity operations experiments below 30m relative distance have been performed with the VBS close range (CR) camera running as a passenger experiment in open loop. read more

Other | 05. May 2011

VBS Far Range data taken during transfer in-between experiments

The different experiments executed at GSOC are performed at different relative distances between the two spacecrafts. According to this we had to transfer Mango from a position at 1500 m behind Tango closer down to 50 m. The ideal opportunity to take a sequence with the Far Range camera testing its use for later GSOC experiments. read more

Other | 03. May 2011

PRISMA Earth Imaging of Southern Germany

On 19th of April the DVS camera system on-board MANGO took some exceptional images of the Earth surface. One of those is a fine picture of the Alps separating Germany and Italy. Several remarkable spots can be recognized here. read more

Space | 29. April 2011

AFF Completion of experiments

SSC (Swedish Space Corporation) performed a remarkable autonomous close approached to bring MANGO and TANGO to a distance of less than 15 m. The maneuvers needed for that approach were computed by their autonomous formation flying (AFF) software on-board of MANGO. During an experiment of 8 days duration SSC performed numerous formation keeping and formation configuration maneuvers to verify the handling of different formation scenarios. read more

Other | 27. April 2011

Vision Based Autonomous Rendezvous from 30 km to 50 m

On 5th to 6th of April the Autonomous Rendezvous (ARV) experiment number two was executed at GSOC for SSC. During this experiment an autonomous approach from 30 km down to 50 m was performed closed-loop only using the Far Range Camera (FRC) of the Vision Based Sensor (VBS) System. read more