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NASA\u2019s Starling CubeSats are zipping through low Earth orbit in the agency\u2019s latest test of robotic swarm technologies for space. \u00a0The four Starling spacecraft, launched in July 2023, are testing a group of small satellites ability to coordinate and cooperate independently without real-time updates from mission control.<\/p>\n
NASA invites the public to follow the Starling mission live in\u00a0NASA\u2019s\u00a0Eyes on the Solar System\u00a03D visualization, which uses real-time data in an interactive solar system simulation. The positions of the planets, moons, and spacecraft \u2013 including Starling \u2013 are shown as they travel through space.<\/p>\n
The Starling mission, managed at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center in California\u2019s Silicon Valley, will test multiple flight patterns and autonomous capabilities, including maneuvering to stay together as a group, creating and patching their own communications network, keeping track of each other\u2019s relative position without use of GPS, \u00a0and autonomously changing their combined science data collection strategy based on the latest readings from onboard sensors.<\/p>\n
Autonomous technologies are vital to NASA\u2019s space science and exploration goals, especially when exploring environments far from Earth where signal delays make real-time maneuvering impractical or impossible. Satellites and spacecraft operating in a networked, autonomous, and coordinated capacity will help humanity explore the unknown and conduct better science than ever before.<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center leads the Starling project. NASA\u2019s Small Spacecraft Technology program, based at Ames and within NASA\u2019s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), funds and manages the Starling mission. Blue Canyon Technologies designed and manufactured the spacecraft buses and is providing mission operations support. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. provided launch and integration services. Partners supporting Starling\u2019s payload experiments include Stanford University\u2019s Space Rendezvous Lab in Stanford, California, Emergent Space Technologies of Laurel, Maryland, CesiumAstro of Austin, Texas, L3Harris Technologies, Inc., of Melbourne, Florida, and NASA Ames \u2013 with funding support by NASA\u2019s Game Changing Development program within STMD.<\/em><\/p>\n