NASA’s Starling mission overcomes early challenges, with its spacecraft now in formation and gearing up for advanced swarm technology experiments.
NASA’s Starling Mission
NASA’s Starling mission represents a significant leap in space exploration technology, specifically in the realm of CubeSats. The mission revolves around a group of small spacecraft, named Starling CubeSats, which includes four uniquely nicknamed units: Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. These CubeSats are designed to operate in a swarm configuration, a pioneering approach in spacecraft formation flying.
The primary goal of the Starling mission is to demonstrate and validate the technologies required for spacecraft to autonomously fly in formation. This involves intricate maneuvers to maintain a specific formation, in this case, keeping the spacecraft within 50-200 kilometers of each other. Such formations are vital for a range of future space exploration missions and experiments, including advanced Earth observation and deep space exploration.
Starling is funded by NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.