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NASA NTRS2019

Adaptations of Guidance, Navigation and Control Verification and Validation Philosophies for Small Spacecraft

Decades of experience developing increasingly capable and more complex space-craft have resulted in a set of accepted practices and philosophies to verify and validate (V&V) guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) subsystems. Until recently, small, low-cost spacecraft have had very simple or non-existent GN&C subsystems requiring minimal or no subsystem testing. As the next generation of small spacecraft take on more challenging GN&C requirements, the GN&C community is struggling with how to scale the subsystem V&V effort to produce spacecraft approaching the reliability of flagship-class missions while staying within the reduced resources of a small satellite project. For this paper, we will examine five aspects of GN&C V&V (requirements definition, software testing and analysis, hardware component testing, integrated vehicle testing, and in-flight V&V) and compare the V&V campaign of a flagship-class mission (Mars 2020) to that of two recent, successful CubeSat missions: ASTERIA and MarCO. Experiences from the development of these CubeSats yield valuable lessons learned and guidelines for future small spacecraft designers.

Pong, Christopher M.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Support to X-33/Resusable Launch Vehicle Technology Program

The X-33 Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) Peer Review Team (PRT) was formed to assess the integrated X-33 vehicle GN&C system in order to identify any areas of disproportionate risk for initial flight. The eventual scope of the PRT assessment encompasses the GN&C algorithms, software, avionics, control effectors, applicable models, and testing. The initial (phase 1) focus of the PRT was on the GN&C algorithms and the Flight Control Actuation Subsystem (FCAS). The PRT held meetings during its phase 1 assessment at X-33 assembly facilities in Palmdale, California on May 17-18, 2000 and at Honeywell facilities in Tempe, Arizona on June 7, 2000. The purpose of these meetings was for the PRT members to get background briefings on the X-33 vehicle and for the PRT team to be briefed on the design basis and current status of the X-33 GN&C algorithms as well as the FCAS. The following material is covered in this PRT phase 1 final report. Some significant GN&C-related accomplishments by the X-33 development team are noted. Some topics are identified that were found during phase 1 to require fuller consideration when the PRT reconvenes in the future. Some new recommendations by the PRT to the X-33 program will likely result from a thorough assessment of these subjects. An initial list of recommendations from the PRT to the X-33 program is provided. These recommendations stem from topics that received adequate review by the PRT in phase 1. Significant technical observations by the PRT members as a result of the phase 1 meetings are detailed. (These are covered in an appendix.) There were many X-33 development team members who contributed to the technical information used by the PRT during the phase 1 assessment, who supported presentations to the PRT, and who helped to address the many questions posed by the PRT members at and after the phase 1 meetings. In all instances the interaction between the PRT and the X-33 development team members was cordial and very professional. The members of the PRT are grateful for the time and effort applied by all of these individuals and hope that the contents of this report will help to make the X-33 program a success.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2011

Project Management Using Modern Guidance, Navigation and Control Theory

Implementing guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) theory principles and applying them to the human element of project management and control is not a new concept. As both the literature on the subject and the real-world applications are neither readily available nor comprehensive with regard to how such principles might be applied, this paper has been written to educate the project manager on the "laws of physics" of his or her project (not to teach a GN&C engineer how to become a project manager) and to provide an intuitive, mathematical explanation as to the control and behavior of projects. This paper will also address how the fundamental principles of modern GN&C were applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Constellation Program (CxP) space suit project, ensuring the project was managed within cost, schedule, and budget. A project that is akin to a physical system can be modeled and managed using the same over arching principles of GN&C that would be used if that project were a complex vehicle, a complex system(s), or complex software with time-varying processes (at times nonlinear) containing multiple data inputs of varying accuracy and a range of operating points. The classic GN&C theory approach could thus be applied to small, well-defined projects; yet when working with larger, multiyear projects necessitating multiple organizational structures, numerous external influences, and a multitude of diverse resources, modern GN&C principles are required to model and manage the project. The fundamental principles of a GN&C system incorporate these basic concepts: State, Behavior, Feedback Control, Navigation, Guidance and Planning Logic systems. The State of a system defines the aspects of the system that can change over time; e.g., position, velocity, acceleration, coordinate-based attitude, and temperature, etc. The Behavior of the system focuses more on what changes are possible within the system; this is denoted in the state of the system. The behavior of a system, as captured in the system modeling, when properly done will aid in accurately predicting future system performance. The Feedback Control system understands the state and behavior of the system and uses feedback to adjust control inputs into the system. The feedback, which is the right arm of the Control system, allows change to be affected in the overall system; it therefore is important to not only correctly identify the system feedback inputs, but also the system response to the feedback inputs. The Navigation system takes multiple data inputs and based on a priori knowledge of the inputs, develops a statistically based weighting of the inputs and measurements to determine the system's state. Guidance and Planning Logic of the system, complete with an understanding of where the system is (provided by the Navigation system), will in turn determine where the system needs to be and how to get it there. With any system/project, it is critical that the objective of the system/project be clearly defined -- not only to plan but to measure performance and to aid in guiding the system or the project. The system principles discussed above, which can be and have been applied to the current CxP space suit development project, can also be mapped to real-world constituents, thus allowing project managers to apply systems theories that are well defined in engineering and mathematics to a discipline (i.e., Project Management) that historically has been based in personal experience and intuition. This mapping of GN&C theory to Project Management will, in turn, permit a direct, methodical approach to Project Management, planning and control providing a tool to help predict (and guide) performance and an understanding of the project constraints, how the project can be controlled, and the impacts to external influences and inputs. This approach, to a project manager, flows down to the three bottom-line variables of cost, schedule, and scope ando the needed control of these three variables to successfully perform and complete a project.

Hill, Terry R.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Benefits of Operational Consideration into the Guidance, Navigation, and Control Design of Spacecraft

The following paper points out historical examples where operational consideration into the GN&C design could have helped avoid operational complexity, reduce costs, ensure the ability for a GN&C system to be able to adapt to failures, and in some cases might have helped save mission objectives. A costly repeat of mistakes could befall a program if previous operational lessons, especially from operators of vehicles with similar GN&C systems, are not considered during the GN&C design phase of spacecraft. The information gained from operational consideration during the design can lead to improvements of the design, allow less ground support during operations, and prevent repetition of previous mistakes. However, this benefit can only occur if spacecraft operators adequately capture lessons learned that would improve future designs for operations and those who are designing spacecraft incorporate inputs from those that have previously operated similar GN&C systems.

Morris, Mark C.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Orion GN and C Mitigation Efforts for Van Allen Radiation

King, Ellis T.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Framework Based Guidance Navigation and Control Flight Software Development

This viewgraph presentation describes NASA's guidance navigation and control flight software development background. The contents include: 1) NASA/Goddard Guidance Navigation and Control (GN&C) Flight Software (FSW) Development Background; 2) GN&C FSW Development Improvement Concepts; and 3) GN&C FSW Application Framework.

McComas, David↗

NASA NTRS2018

Spacecraft Alignment Determination and Control for Dual Spacecraft Precision Formation Flying

Many proposed formation flying missions seek to advance the state of the art in spacecraft science imaging by utilizing dual-spacecraft precision formation flying (PFF) to enable a 'virtual' telescope (VT). Using precision dual-spacecraft alignment, very long focal lengths can be achieved by locating the optics on one spacecraft and the detector on the other. Proposed science missions include astrophysics concepts for X-ray imaging and exo-planet observation with large spacecraft separations (1000 km to 80,000 km), and heliophysics concepts for X-ray or extreme ultra-violet (EUV) imaging or solar coronagraphs with smaller separations (50m - 500m). These proposed missions require advances in guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) for PFF to enable high resolution science imaging. For many applications, the dual-spacecraft dynamics are coupled through the GN&C system when the relative ranging and position alignment sensor components are not co-located with their respective spacecraft mass centers. We develop a model-based PFF system design approach for the VT application, considering the coupling inherent in precision dual-spacecraft inertial alignment. These systems employ a variety of GN&C sensors and actuators, including laser-based alignment and ranging systems, camera-based imaging sensors, inertial measurement units (IMU), as well as microthruster systems and image motion compensation platforms. Results of a GN&C performance assessment reveal how data from relative position sensors can be employed in a Kalman filter framework to significantly improve alignment estimation performance. The assessment provides a comparison of two different GN&C formation flying architectures, illustrating the performance trades inherent in the choice of PFF system architecture in the VT application.

Formation Flying↗

NASA NTRS1992

Guidance, navigation, and control subsystem for the EOS-AM spacecraft

This paper presents the preliminary design of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) subsystem for the EOS-AM spacecraft and specifically focuses on the GN&C Normal Mode design. First, a brief description of the EOS-AM science mission, instruments, and system-level spacecraft design is provided. Next, an overview of the GN&C subsystem functional and performance requirements, hardware, and operating modes is presented. Then, the GN&C Normal Mode attitude determination, attitude control, and navigation systems are detailed. Finally, descriptions of the spacecraft's overall jitter performance and Safe Mode are provided.

Linder, David M.↗

NASA NTRS2005

Solar Sail Roadmap Mission GN and C Challenges

The NASA In-Space Propulsion program is funding development work for solar sails to enhance future scientific opportunities. Key to this effort are scientific solar sail roadmap missions identified by peer review. The two near-term missions of interest are L1 Diamond and Solar Polar Imager. Additionally, the New Millennium Program is sponsoring the Space Technology 9 (ST9) demonstration mission. Solar sails are one of five technologies competing for the ST9 flight demonstration. Two candidate solar sail missions have been identified for a potential ST9 flight. All the roadmap missions and candidate flight demonstration missions face various GN&C challenges. A variety of efforts are underway to address these challenges. These include control actuator design and testing, low thrust optimization studies, attitude control system design and modeling, control-structure interaction studies, trajectory control design, and solar radiation pressure model development. Here we survey the various efforts underway and identify a few of specific recent interest and focus.

Heaton, Andrew F.↗

NASA NTRS2013

The Development of the MSL Guidance, Navigation, and Control System for Entry, Descent, and Landing

On August 5, 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission successfully delivered the Curiosity rover to its intended target. It was the most complex and ambitious landing in the history of the red planet. A key component of the landing system, the requirements for which were driven by the mission ambitious science goals, was the Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) system. This paper will describe the technical challenges of the MSL GN&C system, the resulting architecture and design needed to meet those challenges, and the development process used for its implementation and testing.

GN&C↗

NASA NTRS2007

Orion Entry, Descent, and Landing Simulation

The Orion Entry, Descent, and Landing simulation was created over the past two years to serve as the primary Crew Exploration Vehicle guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) design and analysis tool at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Advanced NASA Technology Architecture for Exploration Studies (ANTARES) simulation is a six degree-of-freedom tool with a unique design architecture which has a high level of flexibility. This paper describes the decision history and motivations that guided the creation of this simulation tool. The capabilities of the models within ANTARES are presented in detail. Special attention is given to features of the highly flexible GN&C architecture and the details of the implemented GN&C algorithms. ANTARES provides a foundation simulation for the Orion Project that has already been successfully used for requirements analysis, system definition analysis, and preliminary GN&C design analysis. ANTARES will find useful application in engineering analysis, mission operations, crew training, avionics-in-the-loop testing, etc. This paper focuses on the entry simulation aspect of ANTARES, which is part of a bigger simulation package supporting the entire mission profile of the Orion vehicle. The unique aspects of entry GN&C design are covered, including how the simulation is being used for Monte Carlo dispersion analysis and for support of linear stability analysis. Sample simulation output from ANTARES is presented in an appendix.

Hoelscher, Brian R.↗

NASA NTRS2010

GN and C Design Overview and Flight Test Results from NASA's Max Launch Abort System (MLAS)

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) designed, developed and flew the alternative Max Launch Abort System (MLAS) as risk mitigation for the baseline Orion spacecraft launch abort system (LAS) already in development. The NESC was tasked with both formulating a conceptual objective system (OS) design of this alternative MLAS as well as demonstrating this concept with a simulated pad abort flight test. The goal was to obtain sufficient flight test data to assess performance, validate models/tools, and to reduce the design and development risks for a MLAS OS. Less than 2 years after Project start the MLAS simulated pad abort flight test was successfully conducted from Wallops Island on July 8, 2009. The entire flight test duration was 88 seconds during which time multiple staging events were performed and nine separate critically timed parachute deployments occurred as scheduled. Overall, the as-flown flight performance was as predicted prior to launch. This paper provides an overview of the guidance navigation and control (GN&C) technical approaches employed on this rapid prototyping activity. This paper describes the methodology used to design the MLAS flight test vehicle (FTV). Lessons that were learned during this rapid prototyping project are also summarized.

Dennehy, Cornelius J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

A Multi-Function Guidance, Navigation and Control System for Future Earth and Space Missions

Over the past several years the Guidance, Navigation and Control Center (GNCC) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has actively engaged in the development of advanced GN&C technology to enable future Earth and Space science missions. The Multi-Function GN&C System (MFGS) design presented in this paper represents the successful coalescence of several discrete GNCC hardware and software technology innovations into one single highly integrated, compact, low power and low cost unit that simultaneously provides autonomous real time on-board attitude determination solutions and navigation solutions with accuracies that satisfy many future GSFC mission requirements. The MFGS is intended to operate as a single self-contained multifunction unit combining the functions now typically performed by a number of hardware units on a spacecraft. However, recognizing the need to satisfy a variety of future mission requirements, design provisions have been included to permit the unit to interface with a number of external remotely mounted sensors and actuators such as magnetometers, sun sensors, star cameras, reaction wheels and thrusters. The result is a highly versatile MFGS that can be configured in multiple ways to suit a realm of mission-specific GN&C requirements. It is envisioned that the MFGS will perform a mission enabling role by filling the microsat GN&C technology gap. In addition, GSFC believes that the MFGS could be employed to significantly reduce volume, power and mass requirements on conventional satellites.

Gambino, Joel↗

NASA NTRS1985

Orbital maneuvering vehicle guidance, navigation and control

This paper describes the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) concept and its intended role. It recaps the past activities leading up to the current concept and summarizes the present status and plans. The various types of missions and operating modes required by the OMV are described as the basis of the guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) requirements. The general GN&C problem is outlined with potential hardware solutions.

Huber, W. G.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Orion GNC Mitigation Efforts for Van Allen Radiation

The Orion Crew Module (CM) is NASA's next generation manned space vehicle, scheduled to return humans to lunar orbit in the coming decade. The Orion avionics and GN&C architectures have progressed through a number of project phases and are nearing completion of a major milestone. The first unmanned test mission, dubbed "Exploration Flight Test One" (EFT-1) is scheduled to launch from NASA Kennedy Space Center late next year and provides the first integrated test of all the vehicle systems, avionics and software. The EFT-1 mission will be an unmanned test flight that includes a high speed re-entry from an elliptical orbit, which will be launched on an expendable launch vehicle (ELV). The ELV will place CM and the ELV upper stage into a low Earth orbit (LEO) for one revolution. After the first LEO, the ELV upper stage will re-ignite and place the combined upper stage/CM into an elliptical orbit whose perigee results in a high energy entry to test CM response in a relatively high velocity, high heating environment. While not producing entry velocities as high as those experienced in returning from a lunar orbit, the trajectory was chosen to provide higher stresses on the thermal protection and guided entry systems, as compared against a lower energy LEO entry. However the required entry geometry with constraints on inclination and landing site result in a trajectory that lingers for many hours in the Van Allen radiation belts. This exposes the vehicle and avionics to much higher levels of high energy proton radiation than a typical LEO or lunar trajectory would encounter. As a result, Van Allen radiation poses a significant risk to the Orion avionics system, and particularly the Flight Control Module (FCM) computers that house the GN&C flight software. The measures taken by the Orion GN&C, Flight Software and Avionics teams to mitigate the risks associated with the Van Allen radiation on EFT-1 are covered in the paper. Background on the Orion avionics subsystem is provided, as well as an overview of the GN&C software architecture. The measures taken to handle radiation induced failure of the one or both of the FCM's are presented, and finally simulation and actual hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) results are shown confirming the validity of the implementation. The paper presents an overview of the Orion avionics architecture describing the GNC sensors, onboard data network as well as the flight control computers and their planned restart capabilities. GN&C sensors include two Orion Inertial Measurement Units (OIMU's), a Vision Processing Unit (VPU) to process camera images, three barometric altimeters and a single GPS receiver. All of the sensors communicate to one of two Power and Data Units (PDU's). The PDU's multiplex analog and serial data from the sensors and write the data to the Orion Data Network (ODN). The OIMU s write measurement messages directly as onto the ODN, but they are routed through PDU network switches.

King, Ellis T.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Flight Software Math Library

The flight software (FSW) math library is a collection of reusable math components that provides typical math utilities required by spacecraft flight software. These utilities are intended to increase flight software quality reusability and maintainability by providing a set of consistent, well-documented, and tested math utilities. This library only has dependencies on ANSI C, so it is easily ported. Prior to this library, each mission typically created its own math utilities using ideas/code from previous missions. Part of the reason for this is that math libraries can be written with different strategies in areas like error handling, parameters orders, naming conventions, etc. Changing the utilities for each mission introduces risks and costs. The obvious risks and costs are that the utilities must be coded and revalidated. The hidden risks and costs arise in miscommunication between engineers. These utilities must be understood by both the flight software engineers and other subsystem engineers (primarily guidance navigation and control). The FSW math library is part of a larger goal to produce a library of reusable Guidance Navigation and Control (GN&C) FSW components. A GN&C FSW library cannot be created unless a standardized math basis is created. This library solves the standardization problem by defining a common feature set and establishing policies for the library s design. This allows the libraries to be maintained with the same strategy used in its initial development, which supports a library of reusable GN&C FSW components. The FSW math library is written for an embedded software environment in C. This places restrictions on the language features that can be used by the library. Another advantage of the FSW math library is that it can be used in the FSW as well as other environments like the GN&C analyst s simulators. This helps communication between the teams because they can use the same utilities with the same feature set and syntax.

McComas, David↗

NASA NTRS1992

Space micro-guidance and control - Applications and architectures

The features and the components of a new microscale guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) system for future space systems are discussed. An approach is described for the utilization of new microengineering technologies for achieving major reductions in the GN&C system's mass, size, power, and costs. The micro-GN&C system and the component concepts include microactuated adaptive optics, micromachined inertial sensors, fiberoptic data nets with light-power transmission, and VLSI microcomputers. The GN&C system will be applied in microspacecraft, microlanders, microrovers, remote sensing platforms, interferometers, and deployable reflectors.

Mettler, Edward↗

NASA NTRS2010

Launch and Commissioning of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launched on June 18, 2009 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. LRO, designed, built, and operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, is gathering crucial data on the lunar environment that will help astronauts prepare for long-duration lunar expeditions. To date, the Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) subsystem has operated nominally and met all requirements. However, during the early phase of the mission, the GN&C Team encountered some anomalies. For example, during the Solar Array and High Gain Antenna deployments, one of the safing action points tripped, which was not expected. Also, the spacecraft transitioned to its safe hold mode, SunSafe, due to encountering an end of file for an ephemeris table. During the five-day lunar acquisition, one of the star trackers triggered the spacecraft to transition into a safe hold configuration, the cause of which was determined. These events offered invaluable insight to better understand the performance of the system they designed. An overview of the GN&C subsystem will be followed by a mission timeline. Then, interesting flight performance as well as anomalies encountered by the GN&C Team will be discussed in chronological order.

Shah, Neerav↗