SPHERES Tethered Formation Flight Testbed: Advancements in Enabling NASA's SPECS Mission

Abstract - The SPHERES Tether project of the MIT Space Systems Lab (MIT-SSL) is working in support of NASA’s SPECS (Submillimeter Probe of the Evolution of Cosmic Structure)1–3 mission. SPECS is proposed as a tethered formation flight interferometer that detects submillimeter-wavelength light from the early universe. Because no previous space science mission has used a tethered formation flight architecture, many technology development bridges need to be crossed. Specifically, we are using the SPHERES (Synchronize Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellite)4 formation flight testbed to perform experiments in controlling tethered spacecraft arrays. Meanwhile, we are performing other analyses on various aspects of the SPECS mission, including nonlinear tether dynamics, control and estimation techniques for coupled spacecraft arrays, and optimal trajectory determination.