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.
Spacecraft Dynamics Capstone: Mars Mission
This course is part of Spacecraft Dynamics and Control Specialization
Instructor: Hanspeter Schaub
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(48 reviews)
What you'll learn
Apply three-dimensional kinematics to create a mission-related orbit simulation and evaluate orbit frame orientation
Utilize knowledge of rigid body kinematics to determine attitude reference frames for different attitude pointing modes
Demonstrate the ability to numerically simulate spacecraft attitude dynamics and evaluate control performance
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There are 5 modules in this course
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.
What's included
2 videos1 reading1 programming assignment
Tasks 1 and 2 use three-dimensional kinematics to create the mission related orbit simulation and the associated orbit frames. The introductory step ensures the satellite is undergoing the correct motion, and that the orbit frame orientation relative to the planet is being properly evaluated.
What's included
2 assignments2 programming assignments
Tasks 3 through 5 create the required attitude reference frame for the three attitude pointing modes called sun-pointing, nadir-pointing and GMO-pointing. The reference attitude frame is a critical component to ensure the feedback control drives the satellite to the desired orientation. The control employed remains the same for all three pointing modes, but the performance is different because different attitude reference frames are employed.
What's included
3 assignments3 programming assignments
Tasks 6 through 7 create simulation routines to first evaluate the attitude tracking error between a body-fixed frame and a particular reference frame of the current attitude mode. Next the inertial attitude dynamics is evaluated through a numerical simulation to be able to numerically analyze the control performance.
What's included
2 assignments2 programming assignments
Tasks 8-11 simulate the closed-loop attitude performance for the three attitude modes. Tasks 8 through 10 first simulate a single attitude at a time, while tasks 11 develops a comprehensive attitude mission simulation which considers the attitude modes switching autonomously as a function of the spacecraft location relative to the planet. Please note that the time it will take you to complete this module and the requisite tasks has increased from prior modules.
What's included
4 videos4 assignments4 programming assignments
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Recommended if you're interested in Physics and Astronomy
Coursera Instructor Network
University of Michigan
Universidad de los Andes
University of Colorado Boulder
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