FreeFlyer is a commercial off-the-shelf software application for

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

mission analysis, design and operations. FreeFlyer's architecture centers on its native scripting language, known as FreeForm Script. As a mission planning tool, it encompasses several capabilities, including precise

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

modeling, 2D and

3D visualization Visualization or visualisation (see spelling differences) is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract an ...

, sensor modeling, maneuver modeling, maneuver estimation, plotting, orbit determination, tracking data simulation, and space environment modeling. FreeFlyer implements standard astrodynamics models such as the JGM-2, EGM-96, LP-165 gravity potential models; the Jacchia-Roberts, Harris-Priester, and NRL-MSIS atmospheric density models; the

International Reference Ionosphere International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) is a common permanent scientific project of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) and the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) started 1968/69. It is the international standard empirical model f ...

model; and the

International Geomagnetic Reference Field The International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) is a standard mathematical description of the large-scale structure of the Earth's main magnetic field and its secular variation. It was created by fitting parameters of a mathematical model of ...

magnetic field model.

Background

a.i. solutions, Inc. is the owner and developer of FreeFlyer which has been in use since 1997. FreeFlyer is utilized by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

, and the

USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

for space mission operations, mission assurance, and analysis support.

Operational and analysis support

FreeFlyer has been used to support many spacecraft missions, for mission planning analysis, operational analysis, or both. Specific mission examples include the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS), the JSpOC Mission System, the

Earth Observing System The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a program of NASA comprising a series of artificial satellite missions and scientific instruments in Earth orbit designed for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans ...

,Close Approach Prediction Analysis of the Earth Science Constellation with the Fengyun-1C Debris, by Matthew Duncan and David Rand
/ref>

Solar Dynamics Observatory The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a NASA mission which has been observing the Sun since 2010. Launched on 11 February 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star (LWS) program. The goal of the LWS program is to develop the ...

(SDO),FedBizOpps
/ref> and

Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission is a NASA robotic space mission to study the Earth's magnetosphere, using four identical spacecraft flying in a tetrahedral formation. The spacecraft were launched on 13 March 2015 at 02:44 UTC. Th ...

(MMS). FreeFlyer has also been successfully used to conduct analysis in both the

high-performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...

(HPC) and

service-oriented architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provide ...

(SOA) environments.

Software tiers

FreeFlyer is one stand-alone product with no added modules, though it does have two tiers of rising functionality.

FreeFlyer scripting

The FreeFlyer Engineer and Mission tiers contain an integrated scripting language and development environment. The scripting language is an

object-oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of pro ...

script with objects and commands. Objects include properties and methods. An example of FreeFlyer scripting is this: // Create a spacecraft object Spacecraft sc1; // Create a ViewWindow, passing sc1 as part of an array of objects to view ViewWindow vw(); // Propagate and view the spacecraft for two days While (sc1.ElapsedTime < TimeSpan.FromDays(2)); sc1.Step(); vw.Update(); End;

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Freeflyer 3D graphics software Aerospace engineering software Astronomy software Mathematical software Physics software Science software for Windows