Spacecraft accelerometer auto-alignment

Details Spacecraft accelerometer auto-alignment Spacecraft accelerometer auto-alignment

1986-08-18

1988-06-07

Peters, Jr., Joseph F.

Aeronautics and astronautics

Spacecraft

With special crew accommodations

244164, B64G 136

Patent

active

047491574

ABSTRACT:
A spin-stabilized spacecraft has a pair of three-axis accelerometers (A, C) mounted on the spacecraft rotor (10) to provide for self-aligning, enduring and sophisticated navigational capability. A second pair of accelerometers (B, D) is added for redundancy and added sensitivity. Each pair of accelerometers are disposed at diametrically opposed positions on the rotor and respective axes are co-aligned. The orientation of spacecraft angular momentum h is determined by star and planet sensors.
Radial alignment of each accelerometer relative to the spacecraft angular momentum is attained by zeroing non-radial accelerometer readings during spacecraft quiescence. Axial alignment is attained during periods of substantially axial thrust by isolating axial translational acceleration by summing readings across an accelerometer pair to cancel rotational, spin-periodic contributions to the readings and time-averaging or otherwise filtering to cancel other non-axial periodic contributions to the readings. Axial alignment is automatically effected upon the correct alignment of the radial and tangential axes of each accelerometer.

REFERENCES:
patent: 2942864 (1960-06-01), Sikora
patent: 3269179 (1966-08-01), Anderson
patent: 3442140 (1969-05-01), Pelteson
patent: 4601206 (1986-07-01), Watson

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