March 4, 2008
Spaceflight
Mechanics 2 1 0 6
Prerequisite: NIL
Introduction: Space
environment, types of spacecraft, present-day
satellites
and launch vehicles.
Orbital mechanics:
Two-body Problem, Kepler's laws, geometry of orbits,
Kepler's equation, classical orbital elements, orbit determination from
initial conditions, position and velocity prediction from orbital
elements.
Satellite operations:
Geostationary orbit, Hohmann transfer, inclination
change maneuvers, launch windows for rendezvous mission, perturbation
effects due to earth oblateness, sun synchronous orbits.
Mechanics: Kinematics
relative to
moving frames, rotations and angular
velocity,
angular momentum of a system of
particles, rotational dynamics for a
system of particles.
Attitude dynamics and control:
Rotation
matrices, Euler angles, attitude
kinematics, Euler's equations for
rotational dynamics, torque-free
motion of
asymmetric and axisymmetric rigid bodies, effect of energy dissipation
on
stability of rotational motion, attitude control of spinning and
nonspinning
satellites, overview of actuation mechanisms for attitude control.
Rocket motion and performance:
Rocket equation, multistaging, parallel
staging, optimal staging, sensitivity ratios, vertical ascent
trajectories,
gravity turn trajectories.
Special topics:
Restricted 3-body problem, interplanetary
trajectories,
lunar transfer, gravity gradient stabilization, dual spin spacecraft,
re-entry
vehicles and missions.
Texts and references:
W. E. Wiesel, Spaceflight dynamics, 2nd ed., McGraw Hill, 1997.
M. H. Kaplan, Modern spacecraft dynamics and control, John Wiley and
Sons, London, 1976.
W. T. Thompson, Introduction to space dynamics, Dover Publications, New
York, 1986.
J. W.Cornelisse, Rocket propulsion and spaceflight dynamics, Pitman,
London, 1979.