Once you derive the equations of motion for a system, the next step in simulating it numerically is to compute the state-space representation, the backbone of modern contorl theroy. This is useful because by placing the equations of motion in a common format we can apply a whole host of techniques to study the system.…
Last week in my lab’s journal club I was presenting on two white papers detailing the reasoning for possible missions to explore the outer solar system. These papers are part of the Astro2020 decadal survey, and I figured I would share some thoughts on them here. As both papers are short (<10 pages each) and…
A few weeks ago I attended the 2019 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialists Conference (ASC). This was my first major academic conference in grad school and I was there presenting on my research on using neural networks for optimal control with a special focus on their resilience to missed thrust events. Where Was I? The Astrodynamics Specialist…
Space is Hard From ionizing radiation to micrometeoroids, space is a dangerous place. Most spacecraft, when they feel threatened, can autonomously enter into a protective operating mode call safe mode. Different spacecraft do different things in safe mode, but most turn off all non-essential components, like propulsion and the payload, to focus all energy on…
TLDR: The Surface Pro is a great personal laptop replacement, but don’t expect it to replace a workstation. Intro This isn’t going to be a numbers based review. I’m not going to run benchmarks, talk about the screen refresh rate , or rattle off the specs of every component in my Surface Pro. Instead, I’m…
A Quick Estimate A few days ago I was invited to take part in a mock architecture study looking at Deep Space CubeSat missions. As a multi-body dynamics fanboy, my heart jumped at the possibility of using the interplanetary superhighway to preserve our meager delta-V budget. The downside of using the interplanetary superhighway is that…
2 Months It’s been two months since New Horizon’s new year flyby of Ultima Thule, proper name (486958) 2014 MU69. Data from the flyby is still trickling in and being poured over by planetary scientist, but the results so far show Ultima Thule to both be a good fit for data taken from the ground, as…
Everything Orbits About Something In our solar system, Moons orbit around planets, which themselves orbit around the sun. Well, actual they orbit about the system barycenter, the combined center of mass between the two bodies. But can we get an object to orbit around a region without a barycenter? Yes! (Kinda) There are actually a…
What are Cubesats? To answer that, let’s first define a U. A U is 10x10x10 cm cube of space from which cubesats derive their name. Cubesats are made up of multiples of these U’s put together and can have 1.33Kg of weight for every U in their structure. Cubesats can range from a simple 1U…
Lissajous curves From orbits around Lagrange Points, to double pendulums, we often run into a family of loopy, beautiful, curves. These are called Lissajous curves, and describe complex harmonic motion. In layman terms, Lissajous curves appear when an object’s motion’s have two independent frequencies. Today, we’ll explore another system that produces Lissajous curves, a double…
