Modeling and Analyzing Inter-Satellite Relative Motion

From a mission operations perspective, swarms pose a planning challenge due to the limited scalability of ground operations. The capabilities needed to support swarm missions go beyond operator-specified geometry, alignment, or separation, but also crosslink communication with maintaining position in the formation. To address scalable control of orbital dynamics, NASA Ames Research Center has patented Swarm Orbital Dynamics Advisor (SODA) — a solution that accepts high-level configuration commands and provides the orbital maneuvers needed to achieve the desired type of swarm relative motion.