This paper describes a potential pointing and tracking system for the Space Shuttle with possible future application to Space Station. In order to accomplish high precision pointing and tracking (at rates up to 2^o/s) in the expected disturbance environment, a high bandwidth gimbaled pointing system is required. A soft mounted momentum compensated gimbal system is suggested for this role. A momentum compensated system is inertially reacting, decoupling the control system dynamics from the basebody structural dynamics. This allows a soft isolation stage to he added between the hasebody and the articulation stage, which attenuates high frequency distrubances. In this paper, three configurations are examined: a hard mounted system, a passive soft mounted system, and an active soft mounted system. Analysis demonstrates that the soft mounted systems have superior disturbance rejection properties. The active soft mount allows reduction of the isolation stiffness to zero, and so obtains the highest level of performance.

Date Published: 1 February 1987
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 0641, Acquisition, Tracking, and Pointing, (1 February 1987); doi: 10.1117/12.964434

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0641:
Acquisition, Tracking, and Pointing
Richard R. Auelmann; Herbert L. Richard, Editor(s)