Attitude and articulation control for CRAF/Cassini

Abstract

The Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) and Cassini planetary missions provide exciting pointing and control challenges. The mission and science objectives, and an attitude and articulation control concept designed to meet these challenges, are described. CRAF/Cassini mission characteristics which drive pointing and control include: close range flybys of asteroids and icy satellites; Huygens probe guidance and communication; Saturn orbit insertion; comet rendezvous and orbit insertion; closed loop target tracking from a comet orbit perturbed by gas and dust pressure; fine spacecraft pointing for Titan radar mapping and Earth communications; requirements for autonomous failure detection; isolation; recovery; and 13.5 year lifetime. The philosophy and approach chosen to meet these challenges and the overall control architecture are addressed, including operational and autonomous safe modes. Critical functions are highlighted, such as charge coupled device imaging of stars and extended bodies which provide references for inertial and target referenced pointing respectively. Tradeoffs and rationale for the selection and location of sensors and actuators are reviewed.