Ground operations stipulate significant program costs and manpower requirements for both commercial and military satellite systems. Spacecraft manufacturers and government agencies are constantly seeking methods to ameliorate these aspects of spacecraft command and control operations in light of budgetary constraints. Recent efforts to address this problem have seen a rise in the application of...

Spacecraft control teams in the European Space Agency lack assistance for monitoring and diagnosis of space weather conditions related to spacecraft status in real-time. This paper discusses the Monitoring Tool of a Decision Support System that provides Flight Control Teams with useful Space Weather information (past, current and forecasted) to increase their ability to protect spacecraft compo...

It is well known that complete attitude control of a spacecraft is not possible with only one single-gimbal Variable-Speed Control Moment Gyro (VSCMG) due to the conservation of the angular momentum. However, partial attitude control without violating the angular momentum conservation principle is still possible. In this paper, feedback controllers that stabilize the angular velocity vector of ...

In order to provide a realistic, hands-on educational experience for spacecraft design students, three complimentary project-based spacecraft design activities have been developed. These design programs are similar given that each relies on simplicity, speed, and selfsufficiency. These attributes 1) allow students to understand the full technical design of a spacecraft system, 2) expose student...

Clusters of low-performance spacecraft flying in formation may provide enhanced performance over single high-performance spacecraft. This is especially true for remote sensing missions where interferometry or stereographic imaging may provide higher resolution data. The configuration of such formations vary during an orbit due to orbital dynamics, and over larger time scales due to perturbation...

This paper proposed a nonlinear robust control for spacecraft attitude based on passivity and disturbance suppression vector. The spacecraft model was described using quaternion. The control law introduced the suppression vector of external disturbances and had no information related to the system parameters. The desired performance of spacecraft attitude control could be achieved using the des...

Several upcoming European and American space missions will be operated using a number of spacecraft flying in formation. The associated scientific challenges are demanding, both with respect to the construction of the spacecraft as well as to the mission design. For instance, energy efficient trajectories and corresponding control laws that enable precision formation flying over long periods of...

Flux-Pinned Interfaces are a developing technology for spacecraft that exploit flux pinning, a phenomenon in superconducting physics, to manipulate the dynamics between two spacecraft modules. Flux pinning occurs in certain types of superconductors which, when cooled below their critical temperature, will resist changes to the distribution of magnetic flux that was present during the temperatur...

NASA is working aggressively toward greatly reducing the life-cycle costs of planetary, space physics, astrophysics, Earth observing, and communications missions. In order to pursue important programs in space and Earth science and commercial applications of space in the twenty-first century, frequent, affordable missions are required. These are enabled through a fundamental paradigm shift in t...

NASA has recently announced the New Millennium Program (NMP) to develop \faster, better, cheaper" spacecraft in order to establish a \virtual presence" in space. A crucial element in achieving this vision is onboard spacecraft autonomy, requiring us to automate functions which have traditionally been achieved on ground by humans. These include planning activities, sequencing spacecraft actions,...