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An overview of the design of a mission to three large moons of Jupiter is presented. the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission uses ion thrusters powered by a nuclear reactor to transfer from Earth to Jupiter and enter a low-altitude science orbit around each of the moons.
Europa is one of the most interesting targets for solar system exploration, as its ocean of liquid water could harbor life. Following the recommendation of the Planetary Decadal Survey, NASA commissioned a study for a flyby mission, an orbiter mission, and a lander mission. This paper presents the moon tours for the lander and orbiter concepts. The total delta v and radiation dose would be reduced by exploiting multi-body dynamics and avoiding phasing loops in the Ganymede-to- Europa transfer. Tour 11-O3, 12-L1 and 12-L4 are presented in details and their performaces compared to other tours from previous Europa mission studies.
The space shuttle development program provided the opportunity to challenge many of the established practices and approaches used in prior manned space flight programs. The most significant accomplishments and resulting precedents which emerged during the structural development of the space shuttle and the space shuttle orbiter are reviewed. Innovations in criteria, design solutions, and certification are highlighted, and brief comments on the lessons learned are included. Thermal stress, graphite epoxy moisture, window structure, and structural inspection are discussed under lessons learned.
Optimization of confidence levels in detecting lunar surface detail in terms of viewing geometry and camera shutter speeds for Lunar Orbiter missions
Engineering design of orbiting geophysical observatories to meet experiment orientation requirements
In April 1991, Galileo's X-band high gain antenna failed to deploy. An alternate approach which utilizes the spacecraft's S-band low gain antenna was conceived and is in development. This approach will enable the accomplishment of at least 70 percent of Galileo's original scientific objectives. The short development period dictates that the spacecraft system design, the ground data system design, and the operational system scenarios and procedures necessary to conduct the mission be developed concurrently, and places a premium on validating the system designs as early as possible. This paper presents an overview of the Galileo Mission, briefly describes the changes required to implement the orbital phase of the Galileo Mission, and describes the functional model of the end to end system which was developed to support the systems design effort.
Leonardo-BRDF is a new NASA mission concept proposed to allow the investigation of radiative transfer and its effect on the Earth's climate and atmospheric phenomenon. Enabled by the recent developments in small-satellite and formation flying technology, the mission is envisioned to be composed of an array of spacecraft in carefully designed orbits. The different perspectives provided by a distributed array of spacecraft offer a unique advantage to study the Earth's albedo. This paper presents the flight dynamics analysis performed in the context of the Leonardo-BRDF science requirements. First, the albedo integral is investigated and the effect of viewing geometry on science return is studied. The method used in this paper, based on Gauss quadrature, provides the optimal formation geometry to ensure that the value of the integral is accurately approximated. An orbit design approach is presented to achieve specific relative orbit geometries while simultaneously satisfying orbit dynamics constraints to reduce formation-keeping fuel expenditure. The relative geometry afforded by the design is discussed in terms of mission requirements. An optimal Lambert initialization scheme is presented with the required DeltaV to distribute all spacecraft from a common parking orbit into their appropriate orbits in the formation. Finally, formation-keeping strategies are developed and the associated DeltaV's are calculated to maintain the formation in the presence of perturbations.
Leonardo-BRDF is a NASA mission concept proposed to allow the investigation of radiative transfer and its effect on the Earth's climate and atmospheric phenomenon. Enabled by the recent developments in small-satellite and formation flying technology, the mission is envisioned to be composed of an array of spacecraft in carefully designed orbits. The different perspectives provided by a distributed array of spacecraft offer a unique advantage to study the Earth's albedo. This paper presents the orbit dynamics analysis performed in the context of the Leonardo-BRDF science requirements. First, the albedo integral is investigated and the effect of viewing geometry on science return is studied. The method used in this paper, based on Gauss quadrature, provides the optimal formation geometry to ensure that the value of the integral is accurately approximated. An orbit design approach is presented to achieve specific relative orbit geometries while simultaneously satisfying orbit dynamics constraints to reduce formation-keeping fuel expenditure. The relative geometry afforded by the design is discussed in terms of mission requirements. An optimal two-burn initialization scheme is presented with the required delta-V to distribute all spacecraft from a common parking orbit into their appropriate orbits in the formation. Finally, formation-keeping strategies are developed and the associated delta-V's are calculated to maintain the formation in the presence of perturbations.
Orbital space station design for permanent residence within earth-orbital payload capacity of Saturn V launch vehicle
The Europa Orbiter mission will place a spacecraft into a low-altitude orbit about Europa to determine whether a subsurface ocean exists on Europa.
An overview of the design of a possible mission to three large moons of Jupiter (Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa) is presented. The potential Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission uses ion thrusters powered by a nuclear reactor to transfer from Earth to Jupiter and enter a low-altitude science orbit around each of the moons. The combination of very limited control authority and significant multibody dynamics resulted in some aspects of the trajectory design being different than for any previous mission. The results of several key trades, innovative trajectory types and design processes, and remaining issues are presented.
This paper is a description of recent studies of constrained optimal transfer between given hyperbolic asymptotes with an emphasis on the practical aspects of the concept for powered Galilean satellite swingby Jupiter orbit insertion. The effects of orbital inclination on performance gain are discussed and the targeting problem for establishing the optimal swingby is solved. Comparisons of some candidate mission profiles are presented and the advantages and disadvantages of the powered swingby orbit insertion are discussed in the context of recent interactions with the scientific community on the relative merits of several mission profiles now under consideration.
The literature offers a number of approximations for analytically and/or efficiently computing the probability of collision between two space objects. However, only one of these techniques is a completely analytical approximation that is suitable for use in the preliminary design phase, when it is more important to quickly analyze a large segment of the trade space than it is to precisely compute collision probabilities. Unfortunately, among the types of formations that one might consider, some combine a range of conditions for which this analytical method is less suitable. This work proposes a simple, conservative approximation that produces reasonable upper bounds on the collision probability in such conditions. Although its estimates are much too conservative under other conditions, such conditions are typically well suited for use of the existing method.
This paper describes the development of an interactive proximity operations planning system that allows on-site planning of fuel-efficient multiburn maneuvers in a potential multispacecraft environment. Although this display system most directly assists planning by providing visual feedback to aid visualization of the trajectories and constraints, its most significant features include: (1) the use of an 'inverse dynamics' algorithm that removes control nonlinearities facing the operator, and (2) a trajectory planning technique that separates, through a 'geometric spreadsheet', the normally coupled complex problems of planning orbital maneuvers and allows solution by an iterative sequence of simple independent actions. The visual feedback of trajectory shapes and operational constraints, provided by user-transparent and continuously active background computations, allows the operator to make fast, iterative design changes that rapidly converge to fuel-efficient solutions. The planning tool provides an example of operator-assisted optimization of nonlinear cost functions.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) is a series of four NOAA weather satellites. Each spacecraft flies a Magnetometer instrument which includes two boom mounted fluxgate sensors located 6.3 and 8.5 meters from the spacecraft. Sensor readings are corrupted by both internal (bias and scale factor) and external (spacecraft emitted fields and misalignments) error sources. In order to estimate the bias, an on-orbit calibration is performed, slewing the spacecraft about multiple axes and then performing a fit of the data to determine zero offset and misalignment terms. The first satellite in the series, GOES-16 was launched in November 2016. Its magnetometer calibration maneuver was found to be inadequate providing insufficient rotation about orthogonal axes. The uncertainty in the estimated biases was found to be in the 3-5 nanotesla range, exceeding the magnetometer accuracy requirement of 1.0 nanotesla. Based on lessons learned, the maneuver was redesigned to provide multiple 360 degree rotations about two orthogonal axes, providing optimal visibility into bias and misalignment. Varying ambient fields over the duration of the calibration maneuvers, corrupts the ability to accurately determine parameters of interest. To address this issue, rather than assuming a constant field for the duration of the maneuver, a non-linear least squares filter was employed that uses a series of spline functions to better fit the ambient field. The number of splines can be varied to minimize the least squares filter residuals. Simulations were performed using 360 days of GOES-16 data to bound the uncertainty in the biases for given residuals of the fit to the ambient field. Following the launch of the second satellite in the series, GOES-17 in March 2018, the new calibration maneuver and enhanced bias estimation algorithm were exercised twice. Based on the residuals of the fit, the uncertainty of the estimated zero offset was reduced by an order of magnitude from 3-5 nanotesla to approximately 0.4 nanotesla per axis. This paper provides details of the maneuver design and the innovative algorithm used to estimate the GOES-17 biases and misalignments.
The development of an Autonomous Space Processor for Orbital Debris (ASPOD) is the ultimate goal. The craft will process, in situ, orbital debris using resources available in low Earth orbit (LEO). The serious problem of orbital debris is briefly described and the nature of the large debris population is outlined. This year, focus was on development of a versatile robotic manipulator to augment an existing robotic arm; incorporation of remote operation of robotic arms; and formulation of optimal (time and energy) trajectory planning algorithms for coordinating robotic arms. The mechanical design of the new arm is described in detail. The versatile work envelope is explained showing the flexibility of the new design. Several telemetry communication systems are described which will enable the remote operation of the robotic arms. The trajectory planning algorithms are fully developed for both the time-optimal and energy-optimal problem. The optimal problem is solved using phase plane techniques while the energy optimal problem is solved using dynamics programming.
There is increasing interest in employing Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) for new missions requiring transfer from low Earth orbit to the Earth-Moon Lagrange point, L1. Mission architecture plans place the Gateway Habitat at L1 in the 2011 to 2016 timeframe. The Gateway Habitat is envisioned to be used for Lunar exploration, space telescopes, and planetary mission staging. In these scenarios, an SEP stage, or "tug," is used to transport payloads to L1--such as the habitat module, lunar excursion and return vehicles, and chemical propellant for return crew trips. SEP tugs are attractive because they are able to efficiently transport large (less than 10,000 kg) payloads while minimizing propellant requirements. To meet the needs of these missions, a preliminary conceptual design for a general-purpose SEP tug was developed that incorporates several of the advanced space power and in-space propulsion technologies (such as high-power gridded ion and Hall thrusters, high-performance thin-film photovoltaics, lithium-ion batteries, and advanced high-voltage power processing) being developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center. A spreadsheet-based vehicle system model was developed for component sizing and is currently being used for mission planning. This model incorporates a low-thrust orbit transfer algorithm to make preliminary determinations of transfer times and propellant requirements. Results from this combined tug mass estimation and orbit transfer model will be used in a higher fidelity trajectory model to refine the analysis.
An interactive proximity operations planning system, which allows on-site planning of fuel-efficient, multi-burn maneuvers in a potential multi-spacecraft environment was developed and tested. Though this display system most directly assists planning by providing visual feedback to aid visualization of the trajectories and constraints, its most significant features include an inverse dynamics algorithm that removes control nonlinearities facing the operator and a trajectory planning technique that reduces the order of control and creates, through a geometric spread-sheet the illusion of an inertially stable environment. This synthetic environment provides the user with control of relevant static and dynamic properties of way-points during small orbital changes allowing independent solutions to the normally coupled problems of orbital maneuvering. An experiment was carried out in which experienced operators were required to plan a trajectory to retrieve an object accidently separated from a dual-keel space station. The time required to plan these maneuvers was found to be predicted by the direction of the insertion thrust and did not depend on the point of separation from the space station.