Hybrid Differential Equations Research Articles

Three-Dimensional Response Characteristics for Spacecraft with Deploying Flexible Appendages

This paper represents a wide-ranging parametric evaluation of the general three-axis librational response of a large class of satellites with deploying beam-type flexible appendages. The effect of system parameters such as deployment rate, appendage offset, center-of-mass shift, satellite inertias, etc., are studied for both transient and steady-state performance. The results clearly establish a significant influence of flexibility on attitude motion during appendage deployment. They show the three-axis response to be markedly different from the simplified planar data, which often failed to predict instability. On the other hand, in general, offset and shifting center of mass were found to have an insignificant effect on the response for the cases considered. This may permit considerable simplification of the governing nonlinear, nonautonomous, coupled, hybrid differential equations of motion with associated saving in the computational time and effort.