Aeronautics and astronautics – Spacecraft – Spacecraft formation – orbit – or interplanetary path
Patent
1994-05-02
1996-05-28
Barefoot, Galen L.
Aeronautics and astronautics
Spacecraft
Spacecraft formation, orbit, or interplanetary path
244173, 318696, B64G 144
Patent
active
055203590
ABSTRACT:
A spacecraft (8) includes a movable appendage such as solar panels (12) operated by a stepping motor (28) driven by pulses (311). In order to reduce vibration andor attitude error, the drive pulses are generated by a clock down-counter (312) with variable count ratio. Predetermined desired clock ratios are stored in selectable memories (314a-d), and the selected ratio (R) is coupled to a comparator (330) together with the current ratio (C). An up-down counter (340) establishes the current count-down ratio by counting toward the desired ratio under the control of the comparator; thus, a step change of solar panel speed never occurs. When a direction change is commanded, a flag signal generator (350) disables the selectable memories, and enables a further store (360), which generates a count ratio representing a very slow solar panel rotational rate, so that the rotational rate always slows to a low value before direction is changed. The principles of the invention are applicable to any movable appendage.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4250435 (1981-02-01), Alley et al.
patent: 4648026 (1987-03-01), Petrick
patent: 4692674 (1987-09-01), Packard et al.
patent: 4843294 (1989-06-01), Bhat et al.
patent: 5216345 (1993-06-01), Eyerly
Festa Michael T.
Merhav Tamir R.
Stetson, Jr. John B.
Barefoot Galen L.
Berard C. A.
Martin Marietta Corporation
Meise W. H.
Young S. A.
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