Autonomous Mission Planning for OLFAR: A Satellite Swarm in Lunar Orbit for Radio Astronomy

Autonomous Mission Planning for OLFAR: A Satellite Swarm in Lunar Orbit for Radio Astronomy

Mok, S. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Guo, J. (TU Delft Space Systems Egineering)
Gill, E.K.A. (TU Delft Space Engineering)
Rajan, R.T. (TU Delft Electronics)

Space Engineering

2020-10-10

Orbiting Low Frequency Array for Radio Astronomy (OLFAR) is a radio astronomy mission that has been studied since 2010 by several Dutch universities and research institutes. The mission aims at producing sky maps by collecting cosmic signals at ultra-low wavelengths regimes, below the 30 MHz frequency band. A satellite swarm comprising more than 10 satellites equipped with passive antennas will be deployed in space where the radio frequency interference can be minimized, e.g., on the far side of the moon. So far, several studies have been devoted to design the space segment, which consists of the payload and platform elements. However, the ground segment, particularly the mission planning system has not yet been designed in detail. In this paper, a systematical mission planning method for OLFAR is presented after a mission planning problem is formulated based on the current satellite design.

Mission planning
radio astronomy
satellite swarm
lunar orbit
ground segment
autonomy

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5515958d-f724-405d-84c8-3b90f815bd1b

IAF/AIAA

2021-01-01

71st International Astronautical Congress (IAC): The CyberSpace Edition, 12-14 October 2020, 2020-October

71st International Astronautical Congress, 2020-10-12 → 2020-10-14

Proceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC, 0074-1795

Virtual/online event due to COVID-19. Accepted Author Manuscript

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2020 S. Mok, J. Guo, E.K.A. Gill, R.T. Rajan