Plane Change & Solar Eclipse!
Payton M -
Hi, welcome back to my blog!
Yesterday I went back to Embry-Riddle to continue working on the simulation in STK-12. I reworked the animation I did the last time I was there so that each orbit in the Orbit Raising Maneuver section is continuous instead of them all running at the same time. Since it took a while to sync the timing of each orbit, there wasn’t enough time to make much progress on the Hohmann transfer part of the simulation. As I do more research about how that maneuver works in STK-12 here, I might be able to go back up a few more times to add more to the simulation. If not, I’ll still be able to show the ORM simulation and create some diagrams for the other sections in order to have visual representations of every maneuver.
While we were up there, we were able to watch the solar eclipse through a few telescopes which was awesome!
In this week’s blog post, I also wanted to go back to talking about the specific maneuvers I’m using in the project. A few weeks ago, I left off on the Rendezvous part of the first Hohmann Transfer to Jupiter from Earth. To reach Eris from Jupiter, a second Hohmann Transfer departure is needed in addition to a plane change maneuver. Eris has a very large inclination, meaning its orbital plane is tilted 44 degrees above the orbital plane of all of the planets. A plane change maneuver requires a thrust burn which changes the direction, and not velocity of the spacecraft. In MATLAB, I created a section for a plane change when departing from Jupiter or Mars for three different fuel types to see which option uses the least amount of fuel.
As this project is coming to an end, I’m working on the finishing touches to the code and paper, aiming to finish more of the simulation, creating my presentation and final poster!
Comments:
All viewpoints are welcome but profane, threatening, disrespectful, or harassing comments will not be tolerated and are subject to moderation up to, and including, full deletion.