The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), is responsible for design, integration and operation of the space and ground segments, as well as implementation of in-orbit ex-periments involving Autonomous Formation Flying, Homing and Rendezvous, and Three Dimensional Proximity Operations including Final Approach and Recede. Launch is expected on June 15, 2010 into a sun-synchronous LEO orbit (Low Earth Orbit) of about 710 km, and the expected mission lifetime will be approximately 10 months. All flight operations will be controlled by SSC via the Kiruna ground station.

The PRISMA mission will consist of two spacecraft. MANGO spacecraft of 140 kg with full 3-axis reaction wheel based attitude control and 3-axis delta-V capability and one simplified TANGO of 40 kg with coarse 3-axis attitude control based on magnetometers, sun sensors and magnetic torquers.

CNES participates to PRISMA through the FFIORD experiment (Formation Flying In-Orbit Ranging Demonstration) which involves two main contributions: the RF metrology subsystem (FFRF) and a software module that is integrated directly into the MANGO on board software.

The relative position of the two spacecrafts will be measured by different sensors depending upon the experiment and the satellite distance:

The differential GPS system provided by DLR is the main relative positioning measurement system on PRISMA, and experiments will mainly be carried out for inter-satellite distances exceeding at least a few meters. The system is based on fully redundant set of Phoenix receivers and antennas on each spacecraft.
The RF metrology subsystem (FFRF): Designed to handle first stage omni directional metrology, the FFRF provided by CNES will mainly function at inter-satellite distances from 3 m to 30 km.
Visual based sensor (VBS): Based on a star tracker used in many microsatellite missions, this sensor provided by DTU will be used in order to identify the target satellite (TANGO) as a non-stellar object at distances up to several hundreds of kilometers, and to track TANGO down to very close range, typically 10 meters during a sequence of autonomously scheduled approach manoeuvres.