NASA Demonstrates Software ‘Brains’ Shared Across Satellite Swarms

Motion Design INSIDER

Caleb Adams, Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy project manager, monitors testing alongside the test racks containing 100 spacecraft computers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The DSA project develops and demonstrates software to enhance multi-spacecraft mission adaptability, efficiently allocate tasks between spacecraft using ad-hoc networking, and enable human-swarm commanding of distributed space missions. (Image: NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete)

New NASA technology works within satellite swarms. This technology, called Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA), allows individual spacecraft to make independent decisions while collaborating with each other to achieve common goals — all without human input.

Researchers have achieved multiple firsts in tests of such swarm technology as part of the agency’s DSA project. Managed at NASA’s Ames Research Center, the DSA project develops software tools critical for future autonomous, distributed, and intelligent swarms that will need to interact with each other to achieve complex mission objectives.

Distributed space missions rely on interactions between multiple spacecraft to achieve mission goals. Such missions can deliver better data to researchers and ensure continuous availability of critical spacecraft systems.

Typically, spacecraft in swarms are individually commanded and controlled by mission operators on the ground. As the number of spacecraft and the complexity of their tasks increase to meet new constellation mission designs, “hands-on” management of individual spacecraft becomes unfeasible. Distributing autonomy across a group of interacting spacecraft allows for all spacecraft in a swarm to make decisions and is resistant to individual spacecraft failures.

The DSA team advanced swarm technology through two main efforts: the development of software for small spacecraft that was demonstrated in space during NASA’s Starling mission, which involved four CubeSat satellites operating as a swarm to test autonomous collaboration and operation with minimal human operation, and a scalability study of a simulated spacecraft swarm in a virtual lunar orbit.

The team gave Starling a challenging job: a fast-paced study of Earth’s ionosphere — where Earth’s atmosphere meets space — to show the swarm’s ability to collaborate and optimize science observations. The swarm decided what science to do on their own with no pre-programmed science observations from ground operators.

“We did not tell the spacecraft how to do their science,” said Adams. “The DSA team figured out what science Starling did only after the experiment was completed. That has never been done before and it’s very exciting!”

The accomplishments of DSA onboard Starling include the first fully distributed autonomous operation of multiple spacecraft, the first use of space-to-space communications to autonomously share status information between multiple spacecraft, the first demonstration of fully distributed reactive operations onboard multiple spacecraft, the first use of a general-purpose automated reasoning system onboard a spacecraft, and the first use of fully distributed automated planning onboard multiple spacecraft.

During the demonstration, which took place between August 2023 and May 2024, Starling’s swarm of spacecraft received GPS signals that pass through the ionosphere and reveal interesting — often fleeting — features for the swarm to focus on. Because the spacecraft constantly change position relative to each other, the GPS satellites, and the ionospheric environment, they needed to exchange information rapidly to stay on task.

Each Starling satellite analyzed and acted on its best results individually. When new information reached each spacecraft, new observation and action plans were analyzed, continuously enabling the swarm to adapt quickly to changing situations.

The DSA ground-based scalability study was a simulation that placed virtual small spacecraft and rack-mounted small spacecraft flight computers in virtual lunar orbit. This simulation was designed to test the swarm’s ability to provide position, navigation, and timing services at the Moon. Similar to what the GPS system does on Earth, this technology could equip missions to the Moon with affordable navigation capabilities and could one day help pinpoint the location of objects or astronauts on the lunar surface.

The DSA lunar Position, Navigation, and Timing study demonstrated scalability of the swarm in a simulated environment. Over a two-year period, the team ran close to one hundred tests of more complex coordination between multiple spacecraft computers in both low- and high-altitude lunar orbit and showed that a swarm of up to 60 spacecraft is feasible.

The team is further developing DSA’s capabilities to allow mission operators to interact with even larger swarms – hundreds of spacecraft – as a single entity.

Source