Dynamics and vibrations

Spacecraft Dynamics
‫سعيد مازن سعيد عشا‬
0147566

April, 28, 2018

Introduction
Spacecraft dynamics is the study of vehicles that travels through space,
specifically its performance, control and stability. It must test the
freedom of movement of the vehicle in six degrees of freedom; the
freedom to change its direction from forward to backward or (b/f) also
known as surge, up and down (heave), left and right sway. It should be
noted that it’s similar to the freedom movement of the aircraft.
The modeling of position change and vehicle orientation in answer to
forces acting externally on its body is known as dynamics. These forces
acting on the spacecraft can be separated into three types; propulsive
which is given by the spacecraft engine thrust; gravitational force; it
effects the space craft through the earth, or extraterrestrial bodies such
as the moon, or stars; and aerodynamic force. Aerodynamic force takes
effect near a body with significant atmosphere like the earth and mars.
The attitude of the spacecraft must be noted down in light of the changes
it causes to the aerodynamics and propulsive forces.
Other than that and with no relation to the dynamics of flight of the
spacecraft, there are reasons that should be known for controlling the
attitude of the vehicle in no-power flight such as thermal control,
communications, and other different reasons. An inertial navigation
system in sync with an attitude control system are the principles of flight
dynamics that are usually used to control a spacecraft, and these two
create a subsystem of the vehicle mostly called ADCS.
Basics and principals
The flight of a space vehicle can be known by Newton’s second law of
motion.
F=ma (1)
While aerodynamics forces; lift which is known as the perpendicular part
of the force to the direction of flight, drag; as in force component parallel
and in the opposite direction of flight. These two components are
modeled as products of the dynamic pressure time a coefficient acting
on a reference area as seen below.
𝐿 = 𝐶𝐿 𝑞𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑓 (2)
𝐷 = 𝐶𝐷 𝑞𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑓 (3)
Powered Flight
Calculations of flight are created quite exactly foe missions in space,
taking under considerations factors such as the Earth's oblateness and
inconstant mass distribution, gravitational forces of close bodies as well
as the moon, sun, and other planets; and 3D flight path. Some simplifying
assumptions for preliminary studies can be created with moderately
small loss of accuracy such as spherical, uniform planet; two-
body patched conic approximation; and co-planar local flight path.
Aerodynamic forces and gravity must be taken under consideration and
noted down in the general case of launch from Earth as well as engine
thrust.
Attitude control
Attitude control is the act of orientation control of an object with respect
to either another entity such as a celestial sphere or nearby objects, or
an inertial frame of reference. Three mutually perpendicular axes of
rotation can be used to represent the attitude of a space craft, usually
referred to as roll, pitch, and yaw angles respectively, the roll axis in line
primary engine direction of thrust. By making calibration using an
external guidance system orientation can be known, such as taking the
sun or a star as reference to determine the angles, then using an inertial
system of mechanical or optical gyroscopes to monitor it. The magnitude
of orientation can be presented by three angles for the immediate
direction, and the rates of roll in an instant in all three axes of rotation.
The feature of control suggests, awareness of the instantaneous
orientation and ratio of roll, and the capability to make modify the roll
rates presume a new orientation by the use of a reaction control system
or other ways. Newton's second law in rotational motion is

(4)
With aerodynamic forces missing, the torque of attitude control is
utilized by a set of thrusters located about the vehicle known as a
reaction control system. Manually or under automatic guidance control
the thrusters are started. To achieve the needed rate of rotation it’s fired
in short bursts. To make the spacecraft stop at a certain position the
thrusters are fired in the opposite direction. The torque about a specific
axis is:

(5)
In some situations propellant consumption may cause problems such as
space stations, in such a case other means could be used to supply the
control torque, reaction wheels or control moment gyroscopes.
Orbital flight
For calculation needed for flight in orbit about a central body Orbital
mechanics are used. Aerodynamic force may be taken as negligible in
sufficiently high orbits, usually of minimal 190 kilometers 100NM in
Earth, but only for missions of short term, over longer periods of time,
small amount of drag might exist which causes decay in orbital energy.
When solving for orbital trajectories it could be considered as a two-body
problem, if other bodies are sufficiently far away and the mass of the
central body is much larger than the spacecraft.
Translunar flight
Missions that send spacecraft to the moon or a planet are not usually
launched on a direct trajectory, instead there are directed to what is
called a low Earth parking orbit; which gives the vehicle the flexibility to
much larger launch window with the addition of extra time to check if
the vehicle is in a suitable condition for flight. Unlike what is generally
thought, a mission to the moon does not require escape velocity. What
is actually happens is that we rise the vehicle’s apogee to a certain height
as to make it to a point that does not reaches apogee, that lets it enter
the sphere of influence of the moon gravity. The needed velocity
approaches escape velocity. The definition of that is the distance from a
satellite when the pull of gravity on a vehicle equals that of its central
body, which is:

(6)
Most of the ship’s flight besides when it’s near the moon or earth needs
precise three body problem solution. However it could be basically
modeled as a patched conic.
Translunar injection
Translunar injection is a maneuver that sets a spacecraft in a course to
the moon by the use of a propulsion system. Calculation must be done
so that the position of the moon will enable it to capture the vehicle. As
first approximation it could be modeled as Hohmann transfer. But the
duration that that rocket burns in is mostly long enough, and happens
through the alteration in flight path angle, which means that it will not
be very accurate, instead of that well integrate the equation of velocity
and the equation of angle rate in powered flight:

(7)
Mid-course corrections
The spacecraft can have a “free return”, where it could go back to a
position that enables it entry into Earth’s atmosphere in case of failure
of injection into lunar orbit. To make a free return possible the spacecraft
will have a simple lunar course which stays in one plane. This will result
in lunar flyby or orbit inside a small range of inclination toward the
moon’s equator. In case of course errors small velocity alteration are
usually needed. Such a course was applied for many Apollo manned
missions.
To get higher flexibility in either lunar orbital or even landing site
coverage, a mid-flight plane change maneuver must be performed. But
this will come at the cost of the free return option. Instead the spacecraft
will be left in a high Earth orbit; the emergency return course of the
spacecraft will be taken by the new plane away from the Earth's
atmospheric re-entry point. Such a course have been applied by the
Apollo missing 13 to 17.
Interplanetary flight
For an object to leave the pull of gravity of planet (gravitational field) and
reach another planet, it’s a must to have a hyperbolic trajectory relative
to the departure planet, with the addition or subtraction of extra velocity
to the departure planet's orbital velocity around the Sun. The perihelion
will be at the departure planet in case of a needed heliocentric transfer
orbit to an outer planet. This will need the excess hyperbolic velocity to
be applied in the posigrade direction, when the spacecraft is away from
the Sun. The aphelion will be at the departure planet for inner
destination planet, and the excess velocity will be applied when the
spacecraft is toward the Sun in the retrograde direction. The patched-
conic approximation is much more accurate for interplanetary
trajectories, since interplanetary spacecraft spend a large duration of
time in the heliocentric orbit between the planets, which are at relatively
large distances away, compared to translunar trajectories. . It can be
assumed that the path point can occur proportional to the Sun at the
planet's sphere of influence radius, as defined before in Orbital flight.
The patch point is the point between the hyperbolic course proportional
to the departure planet and the heliocentric transfer orbit.
Atmospheric entry
Atmospheric entry is the movement of objects whether man-made or
natural as they enter the atmosphere of a astronomical body from outer
space. This topic is highly focused in the procedure controlled reentry
of vehicles to the surface of the planet intact, it is also concerned with
uncontrolled and minimally controlled cases, whether it happens
intentionally or circumstantially, like the deorbiting of satellites and the
falling of "space junk" due to orbital decay back to Earth.
References
1. Baumeister, T., Avallone, E., Sadegh, A. and Marks, L.
(2007). Standard handbook for mechanical engineer. 7th ed.
Estados Unidos: McGraw-Hill.
2. Anderson, J. (2005). Introduction to flight. 5th ed. Boston:
McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
3. Carrou, J. (1995). Spaceflight dynamics. Toulouse, France:
CEPADUES-Editions.
4. Wiesel, W. (2012). Spaceflight dynamics. 3rd ed. Beavercreek,
Ohio: Aphelion Press.