NASA's Dawn spacecraft, an ion-thrust science mission to Vesta and Ceres, has numerous pointing constraints critical for safe operation. Onboard software automatically chooses target attitudes but enforces only a simplified constraint set at slew endpoints. Onboard fault-protection also uses simplified constraints, and violations can result in safing events that dramatically consume mission margins for missed thrust. Lastly, for funding reasons the operations team is lean, forcing the development of month-long command sequences. These factors place a premium on reliable maneuver design, prediction, and verification against pointing constraints. This paper presents Slewth, a ground tool built to address these concerns.
Verification of Pointing Constraints for the Dawn Spacecraft
AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialists Conference ; 2008 ; Honolulu, HI, United States
2008-08-18
Conference paper
No indication
English
Verification of Pointing Constraints for the Dawn Spacecraft
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2008
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