The Mercury-Redstone project

Mercury-Redstone project development history, and contributions to future manned spacecraft design and operatio

The Suaineadh Project : a stepping stone towards the deployment of large flexible structures in space

The Suaineadh project aims at testing the controlled deployment and stabilization of space web. The deployment system is based on a simple yet ingenious control of the centrifugal force that will pull each of the four daughters sections apart. The four daughters are attached onto the four corners of a square web, and will be released from their initial stowed configuration attached to a central hub. Enclosed in the central hub is a specifically designed spinning reaction wheel that controls the rotational speed with a closed loop control fed by measurements from an onboard inertial measurement sensor. Five other such sensors located within the web and central hub provide information on the surface curvature of the web, and progression of the deployment. Suaineadh is currently at an advanced stage of development: all the components are manufactured with the subsystems integrated and are presently awaiting full integration and testing. This paper will present the current status of the Suaineadh project and the results of the most recent set of tests. In particular, the paper will cover the overall mechanical design of the system, the electrical and sensor assemblies, the communication and power systems and the spinning wheel with its control system

The Phoenix Pluto Probe

A design proposal for an unmanned probe to Pluto is presented. The topics covered include: (1) scientific instrumentation; (2) mission management, planning, and costing; (3) power and propulsion system; (4) structural subsystem; (5) command, control, and communication; and (6) attitude and articulation control

Aeronautical engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 227)

This bibliography lists 418 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in May, 1988

Analysis and design of space vehicle flight control systems. Volume XII - Attitude control in space

Analysis and design of attitude control systems for earth orbiting satellit

System Identification of a Micro Aerial Vehicle

The purpose of this thesis was to implement an Model Predictive Control based system identification method on a micro-aerial vehicle (DJI Matrice 100) as outlined in a study performed by ETH Zurich. Through limited test flights, data was obtained that allowed for the generation of first and second order system models. The first order models were robust, but the second order model fell short due to the fact that the data used for the model was not sufficient

GN&C Engineering Best Practices for Human-Rated Spacecraft Systems

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) recently completed an in-depth assessment to identify a comprehensive set of engineering considerations for the Design, Development, Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) of safe and reliable human-rated spacecraft systems. Reliability subject matter experts, discipline experts, and systems engineering experts were brought together to synthesize the current "best practices" both at the spacecraft system and subsystems levels. The objective of this paper is to summarize, for the larger Community of Practice, the initial set of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) engineering Best Practices as identified by this NESC assessment process

Aeronautical engineering. A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 326 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in January 1982. Topics on aeronautical engineering and aerodynamics such as flight control systems, avionics, computer programs, computational fluid dynamics and composite structures are covered

Linear Covariance Analysis For Gimbaled Pointing Systems

Linear covariance analysis has been utilized in a wide variety of applications. Historically, the theory has made significant contributions to navigation system design and analysis. More recently, the theory has been extended to capture the combined effect of navigation errors and closed-loop control on the performance of the system. These advancements have made possible rapid analysis and comprehensive trade studies of complicated systems ranging from autonomous rendezvous to vehicle ascent trajectory analysis. Comprehensive trade studies are also needed in the area of gimbaled pointing systems where the information needs are different from previous applications. It is therefore the objective of this research to extend the capabilities of linear covariance theory to analyze the closed-loop navigation and control of a gimbaled pointing system. The extensions developed in this research include modifying the linear covariance equations to accommodate a wider variety of controllers. This enables the analysis of controllers common to gimbaled pointing systems, with internal states and associated dynamics as well as actuator command filtering and auxiliary controller measurements. The second extension is the extraction of power spectral density estimates from information available in linear covariance analysis. This information is especially important to gimbaled pointing systems where not just the variance but also the spectrum of the pointing error impacts the performance. The extended theory is applied to a model of a gimbaled pointing system which includes both flexible and rigid body elements as well as input disturbances, sensor errors, and actuator errors. The results of the analysis are validated by direct comparison to a Monte Carlo-based analysis approach. Once the developed linear covariance theory is validated, analysis techniques that are often prohibitory with Monte Carlo analysis are used to gain further insight into the system. These include the creation of conventional error budgets through sensitivity analysis and a new analysis approach that combines sensitivity analysis with power spectral density estimation. This new approach resolves not only the contribution of a particular error source, but also the spectrum of its contribution to the total error. In summary, the objective of this dissertation is to increase the utility of linear covariance analysis for systems with a wide variety of controllers and for whom the spectrum of the errors is critical to performance

Avionics systems development for small unmanned aircraft

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-104).by Vladislav Gavrilets.M.S