Engineering topics

Julie Halverson

Publications and source records attributed to Julie Halverson.

4 records

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Precision Pointing Improvements for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was launched in 2009 and, with its seven science instruments, continues to make remarkable discoveries of the Moon. LRO is in a slightly elliptical, polar lunar orbit and nominally maintains a nadir orientation. In early 2018, the Miniature Inertial Measurement Unit (MIMU) was powered off following a fairly rapid decline in the laser intensity on the X axis. An algorithm combining star tracker quaternion differentiated rates and integrated control torque commands in a complementary filter, now provides the onboard rate estimate, replacing the MIMU. One of the science instruments, the LRO Camera(LROC) system, contains a Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and two Narrow Angle Cameras (NAC). The NACs suffer from larger attitude drifts during imaging of the Moon for stereo image processing, resulting from pointing stability degradation of the star tracker derived rates. The controller gains and structural filter were redesigned to attenuate the new disturbances while also maintaining adequate stability and modal suppression. This paper documents the development, testing, and operational implementation of the revised control system parameters, specifically targeted for use during LROC imaging. The new parameters improved pointing performance for LROC.

Julie Halverson↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Efficient Onboard Attitude Commanding for Fast Maneuvering of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

To support Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s extended science missions, an algorithm for autonomous optimization of fast occultation avoidance maneuvers was developed. The fast attitude maneuvers are inserted to the spacecraft attitude control system as trajectories to be tracked. Executing maneuvers in this way requires transmission and storage of a large number of time-tagged attitude waypoints on the spacecraft. For more efficient day-to-day operations, an interpolating filter was designed to perform onboard interpolation between sparse samples of commands. The interpolating filter – called FastXMan for efficient fast maneuvering – was patched into LRO’s flight software in late 2023 and is presently operational. This paper presents an overview of the issues related to the practical implementation of the filter and illustrates the flight performance of the new scheme.

Operations↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Control of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Reaction Wheel Angular Momentum Using Attitude Slews

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) makes use of four Reaction Wheel Assemblies (RWA) for the purpose of adjusting and maintaining the spacecraft attitude. Reduction of RWA angular momentum through the use of propulsive momentum unloads is the principal source of fuel use. Nominally, LRO maintains a nadir orientation but frequently slews off-nadir for science observations. Off-nadir attitude slews can reduce RWA angular momentum by changing the direction of the external torques in the spacecraft body frame. Control of RWA angular momentum using momentum attitude slews has the potential to significantly reduce fuel expenditure. The momentum slew planning process requires careful evaluation of spacecraft constraints, ground constraints, and science observations. Momentum slews are projected to extend LRO fuel lifetime by several years.

Operations↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Swift Mission Gyro Patch and Re-Calibration Without A Calibration Campaign

The Swift spacecraft has three Two-Axis-Rate-Assemblies (TARAs) (designated as TARA 1, TARA 2, and TARA 3, and generically referred to as gyros) which until March of 2024 were all used in rate estimation as an operational workaround (dubbed “corrector-gyro”) of a software defect discovered in 2007. TARA 1 performance degraded throughout 2023 and 2024, making it an unreliable rate source. It was determined that shifting TARA 1 to be the corrector-gyro and using mainly TARAs 2 and 3, with the existing flight software (FSW) defect, would not meet performance requirements for science operations. Rather the FSW was patched to remove the defect found in 2007. This patch was delivered by the vendor in 2009, but was not fully tested or installed at that time. A decision was made in 2024 to install the patch despite limited simulation and testing capabilities. The problem facing the team was to come up with a set of alignment parameters that would work with the new patch, using data from the spacecraft operating normally in the old configuration. Calibration activities would have been possible in either the old or new FSW configuration, but were ultimately deemed unnecessary, saving staff time and pre-serving time on the spacecraft for science data collection. This paper describes the old and new FSW configurations related to gyro processing and alignment, and how the raw gyro and star tracker data from normal operation were used with a multidimensional unconstrained nonlinear minimization in MATLAB (Nelder-Mead1) to produce a fully calibrated set of gyro alignment parameters compatible with the patched FSW. Flight data is presented showing that not only did the process work, it improved performance significantly, rivaling the best slew performance of the mission to date.

MATLAB↗