Basics of Space Flight

311 Pages·2011·16.11 MB·English

Basics of Space Flight
Dave Doody
August 11, 2011
ii
Cover illustrations:
Thebackgroundisaninfraredview, at3.6and4.5micronswavelength, ofacolony
of hot, young stars in the Orion nebula, from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
Arbitrary colors represent the invisible infrared wavelengths. Image (PIA-13005)
courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
The rocket is a Titan IVB/Centaur carrying the Cassini Saturn orbiter and its at-
tachedHuygensTitanprobe. Launchoccurredat4:43a.m. EDTOctober15,1997,
from Cape Canaveral Air Station. Image (PIA-01050) courtesy NASA/JPL/KSC.
Insertstothelowerleftofrocket: LeftmostisaviewoftheSunusingdatafromthe
Solar & Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft, displayed by the JHelioviewer visu-
alization software (www.jhelioviewer.org). Center image combines Magellan radar
imaging and altimetry data in a view of volcanoes “Innini” and “Hathor” in the
southern hemisphere of Venus. From image (P-42385) courtesy of the Magellan
Science Team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Multimission Image Processing
Laboratory. Rightmost: NASA/JPL 70-meter Deep Space Station at Goldstone,
California. View looking toward the northeast. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Basics of Space Flight
JPL Clearance #11-1594
Prepared with LATEX from public-domain content at www.jpl.nasa.gov/basics.
Subject content is in the public domain and may be copied without permission.
Please acknowledge source as the above website when copying. Cover design by
David Hinkle, JPL, copyright © 2011 California Institute of Technology; all rights
reserved. Preface and index copyright © 2011 Dave Doody; all rights reserved.
The work was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of
Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-
tration. This free-downloadable PDF is available at the above URL.
Paperback hardcopy version is available where books are sold:
ISBN-13: 978-0615476018
ISBN-10: 0615476015
Contents
Preface: About this PDF 1
Acknowledgements 3
Introduction 5
I ENVIRONMENT 7
1 The Solar System 9
2 Reference Systems 41
3 Gravitation and Mechanics 57
4 Interplanetary Trajectories 71
5 Planetary Orbits 79
6 Electromagnetic Phenomena 85
II FLIGHT PROJECTS 103
7 Mission Inception Overview 105
8 Experiments 113
9 Spacecraft Classification 123
iii
10 Telecommunications 139
11 Typical Onboard Systems 153
12 Typical Science Instruments 183
13 Spacecraft Navigation 197
III FLIGHT OPERATIONS 205
14 Launch Phase 207
15 Cruise Phase 221
16 Encounter Phase 229
17 Extended Operations Phase 243
18 Deep Space Network 249
IV REFERENCE 263
Units of Measure 265
Glossary 269
Index 287
List of Figures
1.1 Geocentric System of Tycho Brahe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Galaxy M100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 The Sun in EUV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4 Heliopause and Bowshock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.5 L.L. Orionis Bowshock (HST) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
iv
LIST OF FIGURES v
1.6 Van Allen Belts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.7 Terrestrial Planet Distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.8 Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.9 Saturn’s Moon Titan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.10 Geysers on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.11 Saturn’s Rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.13 Crescent Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.12 Jovian Planet Distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.14 Conjunctions, Elongations, Opposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.15 Asteroid 433 Eros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.16 Main Belt Asteroids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1.17 Comet Capture and Orbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.18 Components of a Comet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.19 1966 Leonid Meteors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.1 Longitude and Latitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2 Terrestrial Co¨ordinates Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3 Precession of Earth’s Axis Over 26,000 Years . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4 Movement of Earth’s Rotational Poles 2001 to 2006 . . . . . 45
2.5 The Celestial Sphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.6 The Ecliptic Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.7 DSN Station with HA-DEC Mount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.8 DSN Station with AZ-EL Mount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.9 DSN Station with X-Y Mount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.10 TRM + RTLT = ERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.11 SOE Excerpt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.1 Ellipse Foci . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.2 Water Bottle Rocket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.3 Schematic of Bipropellant Rocket. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.4 DeLaval Nozzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.5 Albert and Elsa Einstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.6 Motion and Acceleration in Orbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.7 Kepler’s Second Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.8 Cannon Atop Mountain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.9 Adding Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.10 Orbital Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.1 Earth to Mars via Least Energy Orbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.2 Earth to Venus via Least Energy Orbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
vi LIST OF FIGURES
4.3 Voyager Flight Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.4 Voyager 2 Gravity-Assist Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.5 Planet-Relative Speeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.6 Sun-Relative Speeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.7 Deep Space One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.1 Lagrange Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6.1 The Galaxy M45 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.2 Radio Image of Jupiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.3 Dark Absorption Lines in the Sun’s Spectrum . . . . . . . . . 92
6.4 Hydrogen-Alpha Solar Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.5 Relative Radial Motion & Doppler Shift . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.6 Differenced Doppler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.7 Reflectance Angle of RF Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
6.8 Cassegrain Reflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.9 Nested Glancing-Incidence Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.10 Refraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.11 Refraction in Earth’s Atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.12 Wave Phases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7.1 Full Mission Life Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.2 Galileo in Environmental Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.3 Spacecraft Right Ascension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
8.1 Steve Squyres Waiting for Rover Egress . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
8.2 Radio Science Atmospheric Occultation Experiment . . . . . . 118
8.3 Lunar Gravity Field Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
9.1 Voyager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
9.2 Galileo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
9.3 Huygens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
9.4 Pathfinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9.5 Deep Space 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9.6 Sojourner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
9.7 Spitzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
9.8 Tracking & Data Relay Satellite System . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
10.1 DSN Hydrogen Maser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
10.2 1-Way, 2-Way Coherent, 2-Way and 3-Way Coherent. . . . . . 143
10.3 Deep Space 1 Beacon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
LIST OF FIGURES vii
11.3 Stardust Spacecraft Bus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
11.1 Cassini Spacecraft –Y side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
11.2 Cassini Spacecraft +Y side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
11.4 Excerpt from Cassini SOE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
11.5 Cassini CDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
11.6 Cassini CDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
11.7 3-Axis Stabilized Cassini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
11.8 Cassini Stellar Reference Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
11.9 Ulysses Prime-focus HGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
11.10 MGS Articulated HGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
11.11 LGA Atop HGA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
11.12 Travelling-Wave Tube Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
11.13 Solar Cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
11.14 MGS Solar Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
11.15 Cutaway view of Cassini’s RTGs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
11.16 Cassini’s RTG Shades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
11.17 Messenger’s OSRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
11.18 Thermal Control Louvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
11.19 Stardust with Shields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
11.20 Magellan Rocket Engine Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
11.21 Cassini’s Propulsion Module Subsystem . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
11.22 Magellan Flight System Block Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
11.23 Solar Sail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
12.1 Galileo Heavy Ion Counter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
12.2 APXS on Sojourner Rover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
12.3 CRS on Voyager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
12.4 CAPS on Cassini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
12.5 CDA on Cassini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
12.6 Voyager’s MAG Boom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
12.7 CCD Imaging System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
12.8 Detail of a CCD Detector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
12.9 PPR on Galileo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
12.10 Synthetic Aperture Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
12.11 MOLA on Mars Global Surveyor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
14.1 Centaur Upper Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
14.2 Delta II Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
14.3 Titan IV Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
14.4 Atlas V Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
14.5 Ariane V Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
14.6 Proton Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
14.7 Soyuz Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
14.8 Space Shuttle Atlantis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
14.9 Pegasus Launch Vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
14.10 Launch Complex 41 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
14.11 Making use of Earth’s Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
14.12 Cassini-Huygens to Launch Vehicle Adapter . . . . . . . . . . 216
14.13 MRO Hoisted to Atlas V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
15.1 Messenger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
15.2 Cassini Aces During Early Cruise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
15.3 Creating Products for Use in Flight Ops . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
15.4 Station 14 Pointing its 70 m Aperture East . . . . . . . . . . 226
16.1 Planetary Flyby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
16.2 Orbit Insertion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
16.3 Stellar Ring Occultation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
16.4 Venus Gravity Field vs. Topography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
16.5 Galileo’s Jupiter Atmospheric Probe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
16.6 Magellan’s Atmospheric Plunge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
16.7 JPL’s Surveyor 3 on the Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
16.8 Stardust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
17.1 Gaps in Magellan’s Venus Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
17.2 Pioneer 10 and 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
18.1 34 m Deep Space Stations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
18.2 70 m Deep Space Station 43 in Canberra . . . . . . . . . . . 254
18.3 34 m Deep Space Station 15 in California . . . . . . . . . . . 255
18.4 Microwave Mirrors in Beam Waveguide DSS . . . . . . . . . . 256
18.5 Intercontinental DSN Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
18.6 The BWG Microwave System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
18.7 The SPC Signal and Data Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
viii
LIST OF TABLES ix
List of Tables
1.1 Approximate Typical Conditions Within Our Galaxy . . . . . . . 13
1.2 Light time and Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3 Solar System Temperature Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.4 Mass Distribution Within the Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.5 Terrestrial Planet Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.6 Jovian Planet Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.7 Near-Earth Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.1 Elements of Magellan’s Initial Venus Orbit . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6.1 Radio Frequency Bands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.2 Characteristics of Electromagnetic Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
1 SI Base Quantities, Unit Names, & Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . 266
2 Some Derived SI Quantities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
3 SI Units with Special Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
4 SI-to-English Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268