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Reaction control systems are capable of providing small amounts of thrust in any desired direction or combination of directions. An RCS is also capable of providing torque to allow control of rotation (roll, pitch, and yaw). [2] Reaction control systems often use combinations of large and small thrusters, to allow different levels of response.
That is, the System seeks to separate out the phases of a manoeuvre into a logical sequence so that the vehicle and the driver avoid being overwhelmed by having to do too much at the same time. For example, braking and steering at the same time place greater demands on the vehicle's available grip and in the worst case can lead to a skid.
A thruster is a spacecraft propulsion device used for orbital station-keeping, attitude control, or long-duration, low-thrust acceleration, often as part of a reaction control system.
Depending on the design of a craft's maneuvering and stability systems, it may simply be a smaller thruster complementing the main propulsion system, [1] or it may complement larger attitude control thrusters, [2] or may be a part of the reaction control system.
Guidance, navigation and control (abbreviated GNC, GN&C, or G&C) is a branch of engineering dealing with the design of systems to control the movement of vehicles, especially, automobiles, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft. In many cases these functions can be performed by trained humans.
The control torque for a launch vehicle is sometimes provided aerodynamically by movable fins, and usually by mounting the engines on gimbals to vector the thrust around the center of mass. Torque is frequently applied to spacecraft, operating absent aerodynamic forces, by a reaction control system, a set of thrusters located about the vehicle ...
The increase in velocity is chosen such that the chaser approximately assumes the orbit of the target. Stepwise, the chaser closes in on the target, until proximity operations (see below) can be started. In the very final phase, the closure rate is reduced by use of the active vehicle's reaction control system. Docking typically occurs at a ...
Bell designed and built the Reaction Control system for Project Mercury's Redstone command module and a similar system was incorporated into the North American X-15 spaceplane. NASA selected Bell to develop and built the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) , three of which were built in the early 1960s to train the Apollo astronauts to land ...