Design and Experimental Validation of Inter-Satellite Link System for Formation Flight SCOPE Mission

Abstract

SCOPE is the magnetospheric explorer mission using a distributed sensing system to investigate space-time correlation of particle behaviors in the magnetotail. The mission needs an autonomous inter-satellite link system enabling commanding, data transfer, ranging, and timing control support for data sampling in unison in a distributed system. TDM/TDMA system has been proposed so as to fit to SCOPE specification. We have developed a simulator to validate our design for SCOPE and obtained successful results. As an instrument to work within a limited resources of small sized satellites like SCOPE, data link, ranging performance, timing accuracy satisfy requirements of SCOPE mission. We describe our inter-satellite link system and achievements obtained through the simulator experiments.