Narrator: Groups of self-coordinating spacecraft,
also known as swarms,
will open the door to exciting new opportunities
in science and space exploration.
NASA's Starling mission is a key test
of the technologies that will make
this vision possible.
Starling consists of four
identical small satellites.
With Starling, the goal is for a swarm
to cooperate and work as one
with minimal human intervention.
From Earth orbit, automated decision-making
systems take the place of ground controllers,
performing tasks from determining
the relative positions of the spacecraft
to planning and executing maneuvers.
These types of operations are impractical
to manage from Earth
when a group of spacecraft is large.
Or when a swarm is so distant,
the time delay for communications is significant.
The mission also has an experiment that monitors
Earth's upper atmosphere, with the onboard systems
autonomously choosing which spacecraft
is best positioned to make observations.
Starling's technologies will help realize a future
where groups of spacecraft are able
to work together on their own,
whether close to home or far away.
(Background music fades out)