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

Space | 21. April 2011

PRISMA Experiment Operations at GSOC

The goal of PRISMA is to demonstrate sensors and flight software needed to perform formation flight and rendezvous missions. With respect to future on-orbit servicing missions, PRISMA is a milestone in developing and demonstrating the required technologies in orbit. The experiment operations started after commissioning and separation of the two spacecraft, Mango and Tango, in August 2010 . The basic experiment programme is planned to last ten months, with an additional two months for an extended campaign. The first half of this timeline was successfully executed by the Swedish Space Corporation, and after the transfer of operations on 14 March it is now GSOC's turn to conclude the nominal first year of operations. Let's have a closer look at the project structure, the experimenter's contributions and the experiment operations to be conducted at GSOC. read more

Space | 05. April 2011

PRISMA – Mango and Tango in mission operations mode

On 14 March 2011, the German Space Operations Center (GSOC) took over operations of PRISMA. Despite my 20 years of service, I must say that even though every mission launch is special, the transfer of operations for an ongoing mission has a very new ‘feel’ about it. PRISMA has been different in many ways. The aim of this mission is to demonstrate various formation flying and rendezvous scenarios at separations of as little as a few metres with satellites Tango and Mango. read more