The goal of this capstone spacecraft dynamics project is to employ the skills developed in the rigid body Kinematics, Kinetics and Control courses. An exciting two-spacecraft mission to Mars is considered where a primary mother craft is in communication with a daughter vehicle in another orbit. The challenges include determining the kinematics of the orbit frame and several desired reference frames, numerically simulating the attitude dynamics of the spacecraft in orbit, and implementing a feedback control that then drives different spacecraft body frames to a range of mission modes including sun pointing for power generation, nadir pointing for science gathering, mother spacecraft pointing for communication and data transfer. Finally, an integrated mission simulation is developed that implements these attitude modes and explores the resulting autonomous closed-loop performance.
This course is part of the Spacecraft Dynamics and Control Specialization
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Coursera Labs
Includes hands on learning projects.
Learn more about Coursera Labs Course 4 of 4 in the
Advanced Level
Approx. 43 hours to complete
English
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Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.
Shareable Certificate
Earn a Certificate upon completion
100% online
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Coursera Labs
Includes hands on learning projects.
Learn more about Coursera Labs Course 4 of 4 in the
Advanced Level
Approx. 43 hours to complete
English
Could your company benefit from training employees on in-demand skills?
Try Coursera for BusinessOffered by
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
4 hours to complete
Introduction to the Mission
4 hours to complete
2 videos (Total 4 min), 1 reading, 1 quiz
6 hours to complete
Orbits
6 hours to complete
9 hours to complete
Reference Frame Orientation
9 hours to complete
7 hours to complete
Attitude Evaluation and Simulator
7 hours to complete
Reviews
- 5 stars80%
- 4 stars15%
- 3 stars2.50%
- 1 star2.50%
TOP REVIEWS FROM SPACECRAFT DYNAMICS CAPSTONE: MARS MISSION
by AAApr 17, 2022
Great application of the knowledge obtained through the course
by DDJun 1, 2021
Excellent, comprehensive review of the course - kinetics, kinematics, and control but I removed a star due to the tight tolerances in the answers. I was off by exactly 0.001 and it was marked wrong.
About the Spacecraft Dynamics and Control Specialization

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