A document describes the proposed addition of a radar function to the Autonomous Formation Flying Sensor, making possible coarse relative-position control to prevent collisions in the event of failure of one of the spacecraft. According to the proposal, in addition to tracking GPS-like one-way ranging signals transmitted by the other normally functioning spacecraft, each spacecraft could simultaneously track the reflection of its own ranging signal from a disabled, non-transmitting spacecraft. From the round-trip travel time, the approximate distance to the disabled spacecraft could be estimated. To prevent jamming of the receiver by the transmitter on the same spacecraft, the receiver would be switched off during transmission.

This work was done by Jeffrey Tien, George Purcell, and Lawrence Young of Caltech for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NPO-40417



This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
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Pseudorandom Switching for Adding Radar to the AFF Sensor

(reference NPO-40417) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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