European Space Agency (ESA) Pointing Systems--Requirements And Fulfillment

W. Nellessen; P. Wolf

doi:10.1117/12.965773

1 February 1982 European Space Agency (ESA) Pointing Systems--Requirements And Fulfillment

W. Nellessen, P. Wolf

Proceedings Volume 0284, NASA-ESA Spacelab Systems and Programs; (1982) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.965773
Event: 1981 Technical Symposium East, 1981, Washington, D.C., United States

Abstract

Based on jointly agreed ESA/NASA pointing system requirements, ESA undertook, as part of its Spacelab development, also the provisioning of a three-axes gimballed experimentation facility, called "Instrument Pointing System (IPS)". IPS will serve as the primary operational facility for NASA and will be used on the second Spacelab flight in 1984. Depending on man motion and Orbiter thruster disturbances, payload mass and inertia as well as IPS positioning in the Orbiter cargo bay, the IPS will provide a high stability pointing capability for payloads up to 2000 kg in the range of 1 to 10 arc sec. In order to complement the IPS capabilities in the lower payload mass range of up to 200 kg and recognizing the particular European needs to provide pointing for small payloads, ESA has started the definition of a small"Position and Hold Mount"(PHM). The initial capability of the mount does not provide a better pointing performance than provided by the Orbiter but allows for different pointing directions to be acquired and kept. Although no full scale development of this pointing mount is authorized yet, a functional model to demonstrate basic pointing performance and operational capabilities is now available. Summary descriptions of the IPS and PHM performance capabilities and development status are presented and potential performance improvements of both systems are discussed.

Citation Download Citation

W. Nellessen and P. Wolf "European Space Agency (ESA) Pointing Systems--Requirements And Fulfillment", Proc. SPIE 0284, NASA-ESA Spacelab Systems and Programs, (1 February 1982); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.965773

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