Reduced Gravity Flight Demonstration of the Resonant Inductive Near-field Generation System (RINGS) (RINGS)

Over the past decade, research has been conducted on the technology of Electromagnetic Formation Flight (EMFF), which uses the local generation of electromagnetic fields by the vehicles of a spacecraft cluster to control their relative degrees of freedom without consuming propellant. RINGS, which stands for Resonant Inductive Near-field Generation System, provides a hardware implementation of EMFF that will operate as a payload on SPHERES, the formation flight test facility onboard the International Space Station (ISS). To maximize productivity during the planned ISS test sessions, we will use a parabolic flight campaign to conduct preliminary formation flight testing and begin the control algorithm refinement process. More »