The ability to re-enter the atmosphere at a desired location is important for spacecraft containing components that may survive re-entry. While impact point targeting has traditionally been initiated through impulsive burns with chemical thrusters on large vehicles such as the Space Shuttle, and the Soyuz and Apollo capsules, many small spacecraft do not host thrusters and require an alternative means of impact point targeting to ensure that falling debris do not cause harm to persons or property. This paper discusses the use of solely aerodynamic drag force to perform this targeting. It is shown that by deploying and retracting a drag device to vary the ballistic coefficient of the spacecraft, any desired longitude and latitude on the ground can be targeted provided that the maneuvering begins early enough and the latitude is less than the inclination of the orbit. An analytical solution based on perturbations from a numerically propagated trajectory is developed to map the initial state and ballistic coefficient profile of a spacecraft to its impact point. This allows the ballistic coefficient profile necessary to reach a given target point to be rapidly calculated, making it feasible to generate the guidance for the decay trajectory onboard the spacecraft. The ability to target an impact point using aerodynamic drag will enhance the capabilities of small spacecraft and will enable larger space vehicles containing thrusters to save fuel by more effectively leveraging the available aerodynamic drag.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff über TIB

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Spacecraft Re-Entry Impact Point Targeting Using Aerodynamic Drag


    Beteiligte:
    S. R. Omar (Autor:in) / R. Bevilacqua (Autor:in)

    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2017


    Format / Umfang :

    20 pages


    Medientyp :

    Report


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch




    Spacecraft Re-Entry Impact Point Targeting Using Aerodynamic Drag

    Omar, Sanny R. / Bevilacqua, Riccardo | NTRS | 2017


    Re-Entry Point Targeting for LEO Spacecraft using Aerodynamic Drag

    S. Omar / R. Bevilacqua / L. Fineberg et al. | NTIS | 2016


    Re-Entry Point Targeting for LEO Spacecraft using Aerodynamic Drag

    Omar, Sanny / Bevilacqua, Riccardo / Fineberg, Laurence et al. | NTRS | 2016


    Spacecraft Deorbit Point Targeting Using Aerodynamic Drag

    Omar, Sanny R. / Bevilacqua, Riccardo / Guglielmo, David et al. | AIAA | 2017