Fluidic Thrust Vector Control for Rendezvous Missions

摘要

Fluidic thrust vector control has been examined computationally in the context of a possible active debris removal mission, where uncertainties in centre of mass location can result in large disturbance torques from misalignment of the thrust vector. These disturbance torques may drive up the required mass of the reaction control system and impose tight constraints on positioning accuracy during capture. The European Space Agency's proposed e.Deorbit mission was used as a case study to model the performance of a main engine with fluidic thrust vectoring for comparison with a standard main engine, with and without a thruster orientation mechanism. Initial results indicate that fluidic thrust vectoring may be capable of compensating for a much larger range of centre of mass misalignments than standard reaction control system thrusters, without the added mass and complexity of a thruster orientation mechanism. Fluidic thrust vectoring was found to outperform reaction control system thrusters in terms of propellant consumption for the model studied.