Hybrid Modeling Technique Applied to NASA's Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) Mission TableSat Generation IB (TableSat IB)

摘要

The NASA Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) Mission, scheduled for launch in 2014, will use four spacecraft in a tetrahedral formation for its scientific mission to study the interaction of solar winds with Earth's magnetosphere. Each of the spacecraft is spin-stabilized and is equipped with several wire booms, up to 60 m in length. The flexible nature of the MMS spacecraft requires accurate knowledge of the boom and bus dynamics for proper spacecraft (and spacecraft constellation) control. This paper investigates a new hybrid algorithm for obtaining the rigid bus angular rates of a prototype of a spin-stabilized spacecraft with flexible appendages. The method combines Euler's moment equations to propagate the bus dynamics, while its inertia tensor is updated using a Finite Element Model (FEM) approach to model the flexible appendages. The proposed technique is applied to an MMS spacecraft experimental test bed, MMS TableSat Generation IB. Simulation results show promising results, exhibiting the expected qualitative behavior of boom oscillation. However, standing issues exist and are left for future work.