FreeFlyer Features Overview

Spacecraft Propagation

• Fixed or variable step propagation using numerous propagators and ephemeris types.

• Full force modeling capability includes Solar System, atmospheric drag/lift, solar radiation pressure, IRI, and custom celestial bodies.

• Detailed spacecraft modeling includes fuel tanks, thrusters, collision avoidance calculations, and full attitude modeling.

• Custom sensor modeling with obscuration masking.

• Formation support gives constellation customers an efficient way to model and analyze multi-spacecraft problems.

• Ability to model relative motion using HCW equations.

• Support for relative states in multiple coordinate systems.

Generating Output

• Customizable 2D and 3D OpenGL visualizations of mission.

• Fully tailorable cartesian and polar plots for use with mission parameters.

• Total control over output layout, which means you can deliver a consistent high-quality output experience.

• Data can be reported to consoles, tables, or exported via custom reports.

• Custom visualization foreground and background elements give full control over the way output looks and what is displayed.

FreeFlyer Scripting

• Scripting language gives you full control over the inputs, outputs, and logical flow of an astrodynamical simulation.

• Integrated development and execution environment includes auto-complete, text color controls, and indenting controls.

• In-script interfaces with MATLAB® .

• Matrix math, mathematical functions, and coordinate system conversion functions simplify script design.

• User-defined functions, macros, and lists enable systems to be complex yet not overwhelming.

Coverage and Contact

• Nearly 500 pre-defined ground station geodetic and masking profiles for full customization options.

• Easy-to-use visibility calculations that factor refraction among spacecraft, sensors, ground stations, and celestial bodies.

• Easily gather field of view, elevation, azimuth, range, range rate, cross track, and along track information about your system.

• Link budget analysis supported natively for ease of managing communications, interference, and more.

• Point groups and vectors provide coverage and contact visualization capabilities.

Maneuvering and Targeting

• Impulsive and finite burn types fully supported.

• Modeling for mono- and bi-propellant blow down systems

• Electric and chemical propulsion modeling support.

• Built-in multi-variable targeting tool with differential corrector capability.

• Spacecraft tank, thruster, and mass flow modeling factored into maneuvers to manage a system.

Optimization*

• Generic optimization capability for multivariable optimization of user-defined objective functions.

• Ability to specify any number of state variables, equality constraints, and inequality constraints to define the problem.

• Ability to find a feasible solution that solves all constraints without optimizing an objective function.

• Known analytic derivatives can be specified to improve iteration speed.

• Support for third party optimization systems SNOPT, Ipopt, and NLopt.

• Global optimization support available through NLopt.

Interplanetary

• Support for a multitude of coordinate systems that apply across celestial objects.

• Define custom celestial objects to represent asteroids, moons, or other gravitationally interacting bodies.

• Ground stations and spacecraft can be made to treat any celestial object, including custom ones, as their central bodies.

• B-plane analysis, rotating libration point, and rotating-pulsating system support.

• Dynamically control parameters of the solar system to adjust propagation for the specifics of a mission.

Orbit Determination*

• Extended and unscented Kalman filters, batch least squares, and square root information filter methods for orbit determination solutions.

• Spacecraft state estimation with receiver and transponder modeling and covariance propagation.

• Ground station location, ground station antenna bias, transponder delay, maneuver, and spacecraft property estimation methods are all supported.

• Tracking data simulator and editor can be used to manage outliers and view multiple measurement types simultaneously.

• DSN, user-specified, ground-based, TDRS, GPS point solution, spacecraft-to-spacecraft, and BRTS tracking data options supported.

Interfacing with External Resources*

• Runtime Application Program Interface (API) for use with other C/C++, C#, Java, MATLAB®, and Python applications.

• Read and write arbitrary plain text and binary file types with the FileInterface object.

• Interfaces with ODBC databases created in MySQL®, Microsoft Access®, Oracle®, and more.

• Customizable user interfaces to manage operations script flow and allow operators to conveniently input information at runtime.

Terrain*

• Ability to model occulting terrain with a VisibilitySegment.

• Support for setting a GroundVehicle's state based on terrain data.

• Load any number of terrain data tiles for modeling a large area or multiple areas.