###### Abstract  
Going beyond the current trend of cooperating multiple small satellites we arrive at fractionated satellite architectures. Here the subsystems of all satellites directly self-organize and cooperate among themselves to achieve a common mission goal. Although this leads to a further increase of the advantages of the initial trend it also introduces new challenges, one of which is how to perform closed-loop control of a satellite over a network of subsystems. We present a two-fold approach to deal with the two main disturbances, data losses in the network and failure of the controller, in a networked predictive formation control scenario. To deal with data loss an event based networked model predictive control approach is extended to enable it to adapt to changing network conditions. The controller failure detection and compensation approach is tailored for a possibly large network of heterogeneous cooperative actuator- and controller nodes. The self-organized control task redistribution uses an auction-based methodology. It scales well with the number of nodes and allows to optimize for continuing good control performance despite the controller switch. The stability and smooth control behavior of our approach during a self-organized controller failure compensation while also being subject to data losses was demonstrated on a hardware testbed using as mission a formation control scenario. networked predictive control; fractionated spacecraft; controller failure recovery; self-organization; formation control; auction based task assignment 20229529. [[https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace91005295](https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace91005295)]([https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace91005295](https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace91005295))  
adaptive or intelligent software that prevents or mitigates failures on the single component level. This can be realized for example by using the single component more efficiently over its lifetime or by detecting failures early on and then compensate for the failure through redundancy. The approach taken in this work can be attributed to the latter class. Another major key driver of the success in the new-space sector, apart from improvements on the component level, is the further extension of the mission scope of smaller satellites by employing one of the core principles of many new-space satellite applications: To utilize multiple smaller satellites in a cooperative fashion to achieve a common mission objective. By using multiple satellites cooperatively the mission key performance indices like ground coverage can be improved significantly while also improving on the typical desired \"-ilities\" of a space mission: Reliability, flexibility and maintainability. Going beyond inter-satellite cooperation, projecting this trend into the future leads to a combination of inter- and intra-satellite cooperation. Here, taking further modularization and standardization of satellites subsystems into account, the components of a single- and multiple satellite system are generalized as independent wirelessly connected interacting functional nodes who are jointly working towards a common goal. By classifying the physical satellite platform components as either actuator-, sensor- or computing node according to their main role in the satellite system, the physical border between satellites becomes blurred and a bigger system of cooperatively interacting nodes emerges. Allowing both intra- and inter-satellite cooperation of functional satellite elements deepens the already existing advantages of today's multi-satellite structures while further extending them with an increased extend-ability, re-usability and robustness of the overall system [4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9]. An illustrative example of such a spacecraft equipped with an optical instrument as sensor and a thruster as actuator is sketched in Figure 1 and is used as reference architecture in the rest of the work.