Optimal Control Problems and Cross-Platform Instrumental Software Related to Constellation Cooperative Control

Currently, there is a trend to use constellations of small satellites to solve problems in space in a more “smart”, “adaptive” and cheap way than the standard one related to big and expensive satellites. More satellites mean more collision problems and more data, so we present some results related to the optimal solution of constellation formation and constellation support tasks. Our interest focus on two main fields: first of all, constellation formation w.r.t. intermediate constraints related to payloads decoupling from the carrier; secondly, cooperative avoidance problem with the state-constrained way to transform the “maximin” cost related to inter-satellite distance. We also demonstrate a tool for mission analysis - MIDE (Missions Integrated Development Environment), a cross-platform c++-written software.