Deterministic errors in the Magellan orbit due to attitude control thruster activityThe pitch and yaw attitude control thrusters of the Magellan spacecraft generate uncoupled moments about the spacecraft center of mass, perturbing the spacecraft's orbit. A strategy to model these perturbing forces in the spacecraft equations of motion is presented. This strategy can model the thruster forces occurring in the nominal and contingency modes of attitude control operation. In the nominal mode, the thrusters fire only to balance the daily unloading of the momentum wheels. The contingency case will occur if a pitch or yaw axis momentum wheel fails, and the thrusters could fire up to 1200 times around the orbit to replace the failed wheel's momentum contribution. Deterministic errors are computed and shown to be under specified error requirements.
Document ID
19890037923
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Engelhardt, Douglas B. (Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Mohan, Srinivas N. (California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States)