Launch and Deployment of Distributed Small Satellite Systems

The rise of small satellites in the past decade has spawned interest in the development of distributed systems or constellations of small satellites. However, whilst a variety of missions have proposed the use of constellations of small satellites, issues relating to the launch and deployment of these distributed systems mean that few have actually been launched. Deployment strategies have been proposed which allow multiple small satellites comprising a constellation to be launched together and efficiently separated on-orbit, this reducing the total cost of launch. The deployment of small satellite constellations using natural Earth perturbations to indirectly achieve plane separations is investigated using a developed analysis method and compared to deployment using the Earth-Moon Lagrange point L1. The comparison of these two methods found that both strategies could facilitate the successful establishment of small satellite constellations in Earth orbit whilst also reducing propulsive requirements and/or system complexity. The study also indicated that the method of nodal precession can be sensitive to the effects of orbital decay due to drag and can result in long deployment times, and the use of Lunar L1 is more suitable for constellation configurations where multiple satellites are present in each orbital plane.