Research Summaries

Back Dynamics, Guidance, Navigation and Control of Distributed Spacecraft: Analysis, Simulations and Experiments

Fiscal Year 2011
Division Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Investigator(s) Romano, Marcello
Sponsor Air Force Research Laboratory (Air Force)
Summary 1) Develop high fidelity dynamic models for the relative orbital and attitude motion of distributed spacecraft system, with emphasis on system for distributed imaging satellites, autonomous rendezvous and docking, formation flying, and autonomous on-orbit assembly;
2) Investigate and, where possible, acquire and comparatively test, available technologies (e.g. sensors) and state of the art solutions for the GNC of spacecraft proximity maneuvers;
3) Investigate and develop advanced guidance and control methods for spacecraft proximity maneuvers in the framework of distributed spacecraft applications, including autonomous rendezvous and docking, formation flying, autonomous on-orbit assembly;
4) Validate the proposed methods through numerical simulation, and experimental hardware-in-the loop validation on the unique S/C proximity maneuver test-beds previously developed and available at Prof. Romano's NPS Spacecraft Robotics Laboratory;
5) Validate through flight testing opportunities will be also aimed at, using in particular the SPHERES test-bed on board the space station (Prof. Romano had already successfully used this orbital test-bed in 2008).
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal