Deep Space Industries (DSI) has taken a major step in that direction in a successful test involving two autonomous Canadian satellites, which carried out the first orbital maneuver without human supervision.

Satellite formation flying isn't new. In fact, the first example was on December 15, 1965, when Gemini VI and VII rendezvoused in low Earth orbit. However, in the 50 years since then, such formation and docking maneuvers have either been carried out by an onboard pilot or under direct ground control. This has worked out well so far, but if large swarms of nanosatellites are going to be practical, especially in deep space asteroid mining operations, they need to be able to operate autonomously.

The recent test involved two Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment (CanX) nanosatellites, CanX-4 and CanX-5. Built by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies and Space Flight Laboratory and launched in June 2014, they are operated in partnership with DSI with the objective of demonstrating formation flying using nanosatellite technology.