AERO3560/8560/9560

Flight Mechanics 1
Week 2 Tutorial
Jeremy Cox & Shahfiq Shahjahan

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 Introduction

Tutors
– Shahfiq and Jeremy

Housekeeping
– Community safety
– Mental health is important

Format
– Worked example ~30min
– Work on assignments ~90min
– Interactive environment – ask questions!

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 Worked Example

Direction cosine matrix

1 0 0 cos(𝜃𝜃) 0 −sin(𝜃𝜃) cos 𝜓𝜓 sin(𝜓𝜓) 0
𝐶𝐶𝑥𝑥 𝜙𝜙 = 0 cos(𝜙𝜙) sin 𝜙𝜙 𝐶𝐶𝑦𝑦 𝜃𝜃 = 0 1 0 𝐶𝐶𝑧𝑧 𝜓𝜓 = − sin 𝜓𝜓 cos(𝜓𝜓) 0
0 −sin(𝜙𝜙) cos 𝜙𝜙 sin(𝜃𝜃) 0 cos 𝜃𝜃 0 0 1

Rotation matrix
𝑽𝑽𝑨𝑨 = 𝐶𝐶𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 𝑽𝑽𝑩𝑩

Direction cosine matrix properties

𝐶𝐶𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵 = 𝐶𝐶𝑥𝑥 𝜙𝜙 𝐶𝐶𝑦𝑦 𝜃𝜃 𝐶𝐶𝑧𝑧 𝜓𝜓

−1
𝐶𝐶𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 = 𝐶𝐶𝐵𝐵𝐵𝐵 = 𝐶𝐶𝑧𝑧 −𝜓𝜓 𝐶𝐶𝑦𝑦 −𝜃𝜃 𝐶𝐶𝑥𝑥 −𝜙𝜙

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 Worked Example – Part A

Satellite in 57°inclined orbit around earth

Assuming it passed directly overhead a tracking station located on

the Earth’s equator and is now ¼ of its orbit downrange (i.e. ¼ of
the way around the Earth), determine the DCM 𝑪𝑪𝑩𝑩𝑩𝑩 that transforms
vectors from the Earth frame FE to the local body frame FB (located
at the satellite’s cg).

The local Body frame is defined with its x-axis along the velocity
vector and its z-axis toward the centre of the Earth (could be
thought of as a wind-axis system).

Assume the Earth did not rotate at all during the time the satellite
moved from overhead the tracking station to its downrange position.

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 Worked Example – Part B

Satellite in 57°inclined orbit around earth

Given the satellite’s antenna direction is defined by a position vector

r = [0 0 1]𝑇𝑇 in the body axes frame, what is the value of this
position vector as viewed from the tracking station (Earth surface
frame) ?

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