Orbit Determination and Differential-drag Control of Planet Labs Cubesat Constellations

2015/09/10 by Cyrus Foster, Foster, Cyrus, Henry Hallam +3 · 1 citation
Engineering · #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Space Physics (physics.space-ph) #Space Satellite Systems and Control #Spacecraft Design and Technology #Spacecraft Dynamics and Control

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1509.03270

openalex publication_date 2015/09/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We present methodology and mission results from orbit determination of Planet Labs nanosatellites and differential-drag control of their relative motion. Orbit determination (OD) is required on Planet Labs satellites to accurately predict the positioning of satellites during downlink passes and we present a scalable OD solution for large fleets of small satellites utilizing two-way ranging. In the second part of this paper, we present mission results from relative motion differential-drag control of a constellation of satellites deployed in the same orbit.

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