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Flight dynamics calculations are handled by computerized guidance systems aboard the vehicle; the status of the flight dynamics is monitored on the ground during powered maneuvers by a member of the flight controller team known in NASA's Human Spaceflight Center as the flight dynamics officer, or in the European Space Agency as the spacecraft ...
A spacecraft's attitude must typically be stabilized and controlled for a variety of reasons. It is often needed so that the spacecraft high-gain antenna may be accurately pointed to Earth for communications, so that onboard experiments may accomplish precise pointing for accurate collection and subsequent interpretation of data, so that the heating and cooling effects of sunlight and shadow ...
The flight dynamics of spacecraft differ from those of aircraft in that the aerodynamic forces are of very small, or vanishingly small effect for most of the vehicle's flight, and cannot be used for attitude control during that time. Also, most of a spacecraft's flight time is usually unpowered, leaving gravity as the dominant force.
A spacecraft's attitude must typically be stabilized and controlled for a variety of reasons. It is often needed so that the spacecraft high-gain antenna may be accurately pointed to Earth for communications, so that onboard experiments may accomplish precise pointing for accurate collection and subsequent interpretation of data, so that the heating and cooling effects of sunlight and shadow ...
The first tracking and data relay satellite was launched in 1983 on the Space Shuttle Challenger's first flight, STS-6.The Boeing-built Inertial Upper Stage that was to take the satellite from Challenger's orbit to its ultimate geosynchronous orbit suffered a failure that caused it not to deliver the TDRS to the correct orbit.
For Space Shuttle missions, in the firing room at the Launch Control Center, the NASA Test Director (NTD) performed this check via a voice communications link with other NASA personnel. The NTD was the leader of the shuttle test team responsible for directing and integrating all flight crew, orbiter, external tank/solid rocket booster and ...
The TRIAD method is the earliest published algorithm for determining spacecraft attitude, which was first introduced by Harold Black in 1964. [1] [2] [3] Given the knowledge of two vectors in the reference and body coordinates of a satellite, the TRIAD algorithm obtains the direction cosine matrix relating to both frames.
Tracking vehicles in low Earth orbits (LEO) is quite different from tracking deep space missions. Deep space missions are visible for long periods of time from a large portion of the Earth's surface, and so require few stations (the DSN uses only three, as of February 20, 2010). These few stations, however, require the use of huge antennas and ...