I attended the 2019 International Workshop on Satellite Constellations and Formation Flying at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. https://www.strath.ac.uk/engineering/iwscff/ It was a very interesting and enjoyable conference. The papers included a mix of papers from faculty, students and engineers in industry. Authors were from around in the world including Bangladesh, Brazil, Japan, China, Europe, Canada and the United States. Topics included control, orbit determination, constellation design and even the legal aspects of space operations.
Keynote speakers included Professor Simone d’Amico who talked about the work done in Stanford’s laboratories, Prof. Moriba Jah, who discussed large constellations and Dr. Timothy Maclay of OneWeb who discussed large commercial constellations such as the soon to fly OneWeb constellation.
Three students were awarded cash prizes for their papers. All of the student papers were good so it must have been a difficult decision for the judges.
My paper on cluster control was the first paper of the meeting. Other control papers focused on orbit estimation, use of environmental forces for control and even using electrostatic actuators.
The workshop reception was at the Glasgow City Chambers that has the largest marble staircase in Western Europe.
The conference dinner was the Glasgow Science Centre. Dinner was preceded by a planetarium show. After dinner, the attendees could wander around the museum that included many fun interactive exhibits.
Glasgow is a great city!
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/kelvingrove-art-gallery-and-museum is a fabulous museum. All the museums in Glasgow are free. Shown below is an exhibit at Kelvingrove related to the meeting.
The weather was nice with just a bit of rain. We went to many good restaurants including “The Buttery”, the Chippery for fish and chips and Chakoo for Indian food.
We plan to attend IWSCFF in the future and hope to return to Scotland for another visit!
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