Flying a satellite by a robot - Automated Station Keeping Maneuvers can replace the traditional commanding by human

Kurzfassung

The European Data Relay System (EDRS), also known as SpaceDataHighway, provides high speed data links between ground stations and satellites in low earth orbit. To cope with commanding of up to daily 400 optical links per two EDRS satellites, an automated system has been implemented. This paper shows how the already existing automated system will be used to realize an automated station keeping maneuver execution and which modifications are needed to achieve this automatization state.