Flight Test of the autonomous Navigation, Guidance, and Control (autoNGC) Software on the Starling Swarm

Performing real-time autonomous guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) functions onboard spacecraft is critical for enabling greater spacecraft autonomy. The autoNGC (autonomous Navigation, Guidance, and Control) software suite is a collection of applications, built on the NASA core Flight System (cFS), that provides these capabilities. This paper presents results from the first flight demonstration of autoNGC, conducted on the NASA Starling mission in 2025. The Starling spacecraft's use of cFS enabled autoNGC to be uplinked and run onboard despite the spacecraft already being in orbit. The flight test had three goals: to demonstrate onboard GPS navigation, onboard state and uncertainty prediction for space traffic management, and onboard maneuver planning. The autoNGC navigation filter, GEONS (Goddard Enhanced Onboard Navigation System), was configured to generate state estimates from incoming GPS measurements. These estimates were then used to predict the spacecraft state and associated error covariance over the following three days and to compute station-keeping maneuvers. Flight test results demonstrated successful completion of all three goals while also highlighting opportunities for additional autoNGC enhancement. The Starling flight test was a critical milestone in advancing autoNGC's technology readiness level, achieving TRL 7 for low-Earth orbit by validating the ability to perform navigation, prediction, and maneuver planning onboard. This autonomy is especially valuable for constellations and other operationally demanding distributed systems missions. The wide adoption of cFS within the SmallSat community and the availability of key autoNGC apps on the NASA software catalog mean other missions could potentially leverage autoNGC to enhance their spacecraft autonomy.