Towards the automated operations of large distributed satellite systems. Part 1: Review and paradigm shifts

This is the first of two companion papers that investigate the operations of distributed satellite systems. This first article presents a survey of conventional methods of operations of spacecraft constellations, investigates its scalability for growing number of spacecraft, and identifies operational paradigm shifts. The second article focuses on the classification of distributed satellite systems and evaluates commercial tools for automated spacecraft operations.The trend of using distributed space systems such as satellite constellation instead of monolithic systems has been growing in the last decade. Recently, a variety of large satellite constellations were announced and the production of some has started. Several of these announced constellations feature more than 1000 satellites. While the “mass production” of satellites is feasible and has already started, there are no effective solutions existing for the “mass operations” of satellites. In some instances, conventional spacecraft operations involve manual control by skilled human operators, following at least a 4-eyes principle. Even when operators batch multiple telecommands together, the scheduling process is still challenging for growing spacecraft numbers. This approach is not (linearly) scalable to large satellite constellations: new operational methods need to be established and the automation level of the constellation increased.To motivate the research activities in this framework and pave the way for automated management of large distributed satellite systems, this paper gives an overview of some conventional methods of spacecraft operations. From this description, the weakness areas in terms of scalability are deduced, identifying potential bottlenecks for the operations of such systems. Following, based on three use case studies, the operational paradigm shifts related to the operation of large distributed satellite systems are identified.