Computer simulations of spacecraft dynamics are widely used in industry and academia to predict how spacecraft will behave during proposed mission concepts. Current technology and performance requirements have placed pressure on simulations to be increasingly more representative of the environment and the physics that spacecraft will encounter. This results in increasingly complex computer simulations. Designing the software architecture in a modular way is a crucial step to allow for ease of testing, maintaining, and scaling of the software code base. However, for complex spacecraft modeling including flexible or multibody dynamics, modularizing the software is not a trivial task because the resulting equations of motion are fully coupled nonlinear equations. In this paper, a software architecture is presented for creating complex fully coupled spacecraft simulations with a modular framework. The architecture provides a solution to these common issues seen in dynamics modeling. The modularization of the fully coupled equations of motion is completed by solving the complex equations analytically such that the spacecraft rigid-body translational and rotational accelerations are solved for first and the other second-order state derivatives are found later. This architecture is implemented in the Basilisk astrodynamics software package and is a fully tested example of the proposed software architecture.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Modular Software Architecture for Fully Coupled Spacecraft Simulations


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2018-12-01




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    Modular Thermal Control Architecture for Modular Spacecraft

    Young, Q. / Stucker, B. / Gillespie, T. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2008


    Modular Thermal Control Architecture for Modular Spacecraft

    Young, Quinn / Stucker, Brent / Gillespie, Thad et al. | AIAA | 2008



    Modular Software Architecture for Space- and Ground-Based Spacecraft Navigation Using GPS

    Shoan, W. / Truong, S. / Weidow, D. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1996


    Autonomy in Spacecraft Software Architecture

    Hexmoor, H. / Florida AI Research Society | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1999