New trade tree for manned mars missions

Recent studies on human missions to Mars suggest revisiting the parameters that have the most important impact on the complexity, the initial mass in low Earth orbit, the risks and the development costs for the first journey to the red planet. In the last NASA reference mission, a trade tree is proposed.     

Behavior of tethered debris with flexible appendages

Active exploration of the space leads to growth of a near-Earth space pollution. The frequency of the registered collisions of space debris with functional satellites highly increased during last 10 years. As a rule a large space debris can be observed from the Earth and catalogued, then it is possible to avoid collision with the active spacecraft. However every large debris is a potential source of a numerous small debris particles. To reduce debris population in the near Earth space the large debris should be removed from working orbits. The active debris removal technique is considered that intend to use a tethered orbital transfer vehicle, or a space tug attached by a tether to the space debris. This paper focuses on the dynamics of the space debris with flexible appendages. Mathematical model of the system is derived using the Lagrange formalism. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the mutual influence of the oscillations of flexible appendages and the oscillations of a tether. It is shown that flexible appendages can have a significant influence on the attitude motion of the space debris and the safety of the transportation process.     

Applications of tuned mass dampers to improve performance of large space mirrors

In order for future imaging spacecraft to meet higher resolution imaging capability, it will be necessary to build large space telescopes with primary mirror diameters that range from 10 m to 20 m and do so with nanometer surface accuracy. Due to launch vehicle mass and volume constraints, these mirrors have to be deployable and lightweight, such as segmented mirrors using active optics to correct mirror surfaces with closed loop control. As a part of this work, system identification tests revealed that dynamic disturbances inherent in a laboratory environment are significant enough to degrade the optical performance of the telescope. Research was performed at the Naval Postgraduate School to identify the vibration modes most affecting the optical performance and evaluate different techniques to increase damping of those modes. Based on this work, tuned mass dampers (TMDs) were selected because of their simplicity in implementation and effectiveness in targeting specific modes. The selected damping mechanism was an eddy current damper where the damping and frequency of the damper could be easily changed. System identification of segments was performed to derive TMD specifications. Several configurations of the damper were evaluated, including the number and placement of TMDs, damping constant, and targeted structural modes. The final configuration consisted of two dampers located at the edge of each segment and resulted in 80% reduction in vibrations. The WFE for the system without dampers was 1.5 waves, with one TMD the WFE was 0.9 waves, and with two TMDs the WFE was 0.25 waves. This paper provides details of some of the work done in this area and includes theoretical predictions for optimum damping which were experimentally verified on a large aperture segmented system.     

An innovative navigation scheme of powered descent phase for Mars pinpoint landing

Pinpoint landing (within 100 m from the target) is essential for future Mars exploration missions. This paper deals with one aspect of the pinpoint landing architecture—the navigation performance improvement during the powered descent phase, and proposes an innovative navigation scheme to obtain the vehicle complete and accurate states. On the basis of dead reckoning relying on the Inertial Measurement Unit, measurements of the Integrated Doppler Radar are adopted to correct the vehicle velocity and altitude. Distance between the vehicle and one Mars Orbiter as well as their line-of-sight relative velocity is measured by a radio sensor, and integrated in the filter to correct the vehicle horizontal position. The innovative navigation system is based on an Extend Kalman Filter. Two observation schemes are developed. One considers measurements of the Integrated Doppler Radar and radio range measurement. Another further considers radio velocity measurement. The performance of the innovative navigation scheme is greatly influenced by the position of the Mars Orbiter with respect to the target. Stochastic analyses are performed to obtain optimal locations of Mars Orbiter. Finally, the innovative navigation scheme performances are assessed through stochastic simulations. Its performance improvements are demonstrated by comparison with the Integrated Doppler Radar only navigation scheme.     

航天器着陆碰撞动力学CUDA并行计算技术

航天器着陆接触碰撞过程中的瞬态响应计算,涉及到几何非线性、接触非线性和材料非线性,计算过程复杂,计算量大。为此,文章将统一计算架构(CUDA)技术应用到接触碰撞问题的并行显式积分计算,研究了质量矩阵和刚度矩阵的并行生成方法,并将基于中心差分法的求解过程并行化实施。仿真算例表明:并行算法计算结果准确,较大地提高了计算仿真分析的效率,可为航天器着陆过程中冲击动力学计算的快速和高精度实现奠定基础。     

Analytical-HZETRN model for rapid assessment of active magnetic radiation shielding

The use of active radiation shielding designs has the potential to reduce the radiation exposure received by astronauts on deep-space missions at a significantly lower mass penalty than designs utilizing only passive shielding. Unfortunately, the determination of the radiation exposure inside these shielded environments often involves lengthy and computationally intensive Monte Carlo analysis. In order to evaluate the large trade space of design parameters associated with a magnetic radiation shield design, an analytical model was developed for the determination of flux inside a solenoid magnetic field due to the Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCR) radiation environment. This analytical model was then coupled with NASA’s radiation transport code, HZETRN, to account for the effects of passive/structural shielding mass. The resulting model can rapidly obtain results for a given configuration and can therefore be used to analyze an entire trade space of potential variables in less time than is required for even a single Monte Carlo run. Analyzing this trade space for a solenoid magnetic shield design indicates that active shield bending powers greater than ∼15 Tm and passive/structural shielding thicknesses greater than 40 g/cm² have a limited impact on reducing dose equivalent values. Also, it is shown that higher magnetic field strengths are more effective than thicker magnetic fields at reducing dose equivalent.     

弹性高超声速飞行器建模及精细姿态控制

为保证超燃冲压发动机的良好进气,需要对高超声速飞行器进行精细姿态控制,但弹性振动问题极大影响其精细姿态控制精度。以高超声速飞行器的纵向通道为例,分析弹性振动问题对飞行控制系统的影响,建立面向控制的弹性高超声速飞行器数学模型,考虑气动参数和模态参数的大范围摄动,采用主动控制策略,基于鲁棒H∞理论和LQR理论设计精细姿态控制系统。大量仿真表明：在考虑测量噪声、舵机非线性、参数大范围摄动的情况下,控制系统能够很好地跟踪刚体攻角,抑制弹性攻角,并保证进气口当地攻角±0.4度的控制精度,满足高超声速飞行器精细姿态控制的要求。     

航母运动对舰载飞机着舰安全性的影响

总结了舰载飞机的着舰安全性分类等级,研究了航母的航行运动以及随海浪的摇晃和振荡运动对舰载机着舰安全性的影响规律,并给出了与舰载机进舰速度适配的最优航母航行速度.研究结果表明:由于航母的航行方向与舰载机的进舰方向存在一定的夹角,驾驶员在进舰过程中必须协调操纵副翼和方向舵才能保证舰载机安全准确地着舰;航母航行速度越大,驾驶员操纵量越大,着舰偏差也越大.海况越恶劣,着舰信号指挥官对航母运动的预报和补偿效果越差,着舰失败概率越大.因此,为保证舰载机的着舰安全,必须选择合适的航母航行速度,同时应尽量选择在平稳的海况下进舰着舰.      

飞机着陆进近穿越风切变的轨迹响应

大气紊流和风切变对飞行活动影响较大,尤以低空风切变危害最大,严重威胁着民航飞行的安全。鉴于飞行器对抗大气扰动的实际能力有限,正确的飞行对策是回避或改出危险的大气扰动区。本文对某训练飞机着陆进近遭遇风切变时飞机轨迹的变化进行了模拟仿真计算。结果表明,采用恒定迎角策略,即采用最大允许迎角（抖动迎角）和最大油门时,改出效果最佳。同时计算出了某训练飞机在水平风为0时,所能抵抗的最大垂直阵风强度;以及在垂直阵风为0时,所能抵抗的最大水平风强度。