SPACECRAFT FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM USING LOW-ORBIT SATELLITES INTERCONNECTED BY INTER-SATELLITE LINKS AS TRANSPONDERS Russian patent published in 2020 - IPC B64G3/00 H04B7/00 

FIELD: astronautics.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to cosmonautics, particularly, to flight control of spacecrafts. Flight control system is a satellite digital transport network for transmitting control information from a flight control center to a spacecraft in forward and reverse communication channels, through low-orbit spacecraft retransmitters, each of which is interconnected via inter-satellite radio lines with adjacent spacecrafts and with "airborne" radio link. Each low-orbiting relay satellite (RS) is equipped with two unidirectional transceiving antennae located along axes of minus Y and +Y, which are open ends of waveguides or spiral antennas, or a system of spiral antennae, which provide information exchange with spacecraft. Each spacecraft is equipped with two or four low-directivity transceiving antennae located along axes minus Y and +Y.

EFFECT: higher operational efficiency of low-orbit spacecraft flight control; high fail-safety of spacecraft flight control system located at low orbits; simplifying algorithms for establishing and providing communication in ISRL between RS and spacecraft.

3 cl, 2 dwg