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Analysis of the flight dynamics of the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) off-sun scientific pointingAlgorithms are presented which were created and implemented by the Goddard Space Flight Center's (GSFC's) Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) attitude operations team to support large-angle spacecraft pointing at scientific objectives. The mission objective of the post-repair SMM satellite was to study solar phenomena. However, because the scientific instruments, such as the Coronagraph/Polarimeter (CP) and the Hard X ray Burst Spectrometer (HXRBS), were able to view objects other than the Sun, attitude operations support for attitude pointing at large angles from the nominal solar-pointing attitudes was required. Subsequently, attitude support for SMM was provided for scientific objectives such as Comet Halley, Supernova 1987A, Cygnus X-1, and the Crab Nebula. In addition, the analysis was extended to include the reverse problem, computing the right ascension and declination of a body given the off-Sun angles. This analysis led to the computation of the orbits of seven new solar comets seen in the field-of-view (FOV) of the CP. The activities necessary to meet these large-angle attitude-pointing sequences, such as slew sequence planning, viewing-period prediction, and tracking-bias computation are described. Analysis is presented for the computation of maneuvers and pointing parameters relative to the SMM-unique, Sun-centered reference frame. Finally, science data and independent attitude solutions are used to evaluate the large-angle pointing performance.
Document ID
19900004116
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Pitone, D. S.
(Computer Sciences Corp. Silver Spring, MD, United States)
Klein, J. R.
(Computer Sciences Corp. Silver Spring, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
October 1, 1989
Publication Information
Publication: NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Flight Mechanics(Estimation Theory Symposium, 1989
Subject Category
Astrodynamics
Accession Number
90N13432
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS5-31500
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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