Mission concepts proposed to return Mars soil samples to Earth involve a critical rendezvous phase with a passive sample container placed in Mars orbit by an ascent vehicle. An innovative magnetic capture device was recently proposed to increase the reliability and simplify capture operations. Control aspects of this device are persented. More specifically, the magnetic capture devices allows to damp rotation rates and to enforce a specific relative orientation of the sample container at a range of about 4 meters. The final contact is secured thanks to an additional, small, passive magnet. The linear stability and performance of the controller is analyzed, and nonlinear simulations are presented.
Control of a magnetic capture device for autonomous in-orbit rendezvous
2011
6 Seiten, 4 Bilder, 6 Quellen
Conference paper
Storage medium
English
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