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Martz, C. W.

Publications and source records attributed to Martz, C. W..

Two-impulse reorientation of asymmetric spacecraft

An investigation conducted to determine minimum maneuver costs for attitude reorientation of spacecraft of all possible inertial distribution over a wide range of maneuver angles by use of a two impulse coning method of reorientation is reported. Maneuver cost, proportional to the product of fuel consumed (total impulse) and time expended during a maneuver is discussed. Assumptions included external impulsive control torques, rigid body spacecraft rest-to-rest maneuvers, and no disturbance torques. Results are presented in terms of average cost and standard deviation for various maneuver ranges. Costs of individual reorientations are calculated with the computer program included.

Martz, C. W.↗

Attitude reorientation of spacecraft by means of impulse coning

Minimum maneuver costs for attitude reorientation of spacecraft of all possible inertial distribution over a wide range of maneuver angles by use of the impulse coning method of reorientation was studied. Maneuver cost is proportional to the product of fuel consumed and time expended during a maneuver. Assumptions included impulsive external control torques, rigid-body spacecraft, rest-to-rest maneuvers, and no disturbance torques. Also, coning maneuvers were constrained to have equal initial and final cone angles. Maneuver costs are presented for general reorientations as well as for spin-axis reorientations where final attitude about the spin axis is arbitrary.

Martz, C. W.↗

A passive balancer for a class of rotating spacecraft

Equations of motion are derived for a flexibly connected dual-spin spacecraft equipped with four pendulumlike passive controllers for mass balance and spin axis control. These equations are constrained and used to determine the conditions required for successful steady-state operation of the controllers with a spinning, rigid-body spacecraft. Generalized controller sizing criteria are derived and related to limiting values of system time constant for an example spacecraft unbalance condition. A generalized real-time computer simulation of a large, slowly spinning rigid-body spacecraft equipped with passive controllers is also presented. Numerical results of this simulation show that passive controllers can successfully balance a class of rotating rigid bodies undergoing large internal mass and inertial disturbances. The ratio of total controller mass to spacecraft mass need not be greater than 1 to 2 percent.

Martz, C. W.↗