Starling Animation

NASA’s Starling mission is advancing the readiness of various technologies for cooperative groups of spacecraft – also known as distributed missions, clusters, or swarms. Starling will demonstrate technologies to enable multipoint science data collection by several small spacecraft flying in swarms. The six-month mission will use four CubeSats in low-Earth orbit to test four technologies that let spacecraft operate in a synchronized manner without resources from the ground. The technologies will advance the following capabilities.

• Network Communication
• Cluster Flight Control
• Relative navigation
• Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy

The Starling mission will test whether the technologies work as expected, what their limitations are, and what developments are still needed for CubeSat swarms to be successful.

This animation illustrates Starling mission operations, offering an overview of each technology being demonstrated.