What is it about?
This paper describes a study to analyze operational strategies to navigate a spacecraft from an apparent orbit around Phobos down to a waypoint above the surface where it can safely transition to fully autonomous GNC for touchdown. A dedicated tool was developed to perform the analysis and the tool can be re-used for other small body approaches.
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Why is it important?
This work is important for two main reasons: - At the time there were no Mission Analysis tools available that could cope with small bodies in the vicinity of planets (third-body problem) - There was analysis on how to arrive at the small body and analysis on how to design the GNC for final descent and landing, but there was a knowledge gap on how to conduct effective operations from the parking position down to the waypoint where autonomous GNC could be engaged
Perspectives
This paper resulted from a very professional collaboration between ESA and GMV. The most critical part of the work consisted in nailing down all the correct assumptions for the analysis. The results demonstrated that there were solutions that allowed navigating to the descent gate within the error envelope required to ensure minimal error at landing.
Bruno Teixeira de Sousa
European Space Agency
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: FASTMOPS: Filling the gap from Quasi-Stationary Orbit down to a Phobos automated approach for landing, May 2016, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2016-2429.
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