Description
The ALIGN mission is an in-orbit demonstration mission consisting of two 6U CubeSats carrying an experimental free-space optical communications system called FOCUS. This presentation describes the mission design, which includes two identical 6U CubeSats, a new S-band radio intersatellite link, high-performance attitude control and coarse formation flying of the two satellites via controlled differential drag. We demonstrate the mission properties, such as lifetime, satellite separations, and closure of the resource budgets, such as: mass, power, data, radio link, and thermal. We demonstrate that mission operations can provide a link distance between 500 and 1000 km and operate the FOCUS payload to test the intersatellite optical communications system. We hope that this mission design can provide a template for others seeking to use intersatellite communication systems or swarms of CubeSats for future science missions
