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The Rotational Dynamics of Mir
Michael Foale
NASA
Download talk material:
The Russian Space Station Mir is a solid body with unequal
principal moments of
inertia. Free body rotations, initially begun about the middle
principal axis, in general
develop into rotations about the other pair of axes in the course of
free motion. This
motion is problematic for a station that has lost attitude control
and must maintain
its solar arrays directed toward the sun to maintain electrical
power. This paper uses
methods of Euler to calculate the resultant motion of Mir in
inertial space, with
given total angular momentum and specified initial angular velocities
about the solid body
axes. The results are used to illustrate the difficulty of setting up
an initial free
rotation suitable to provide constant illumination of the Mir solar
arrays.
Michael Foale is NASA Astronaut/Technical Assistant to the
Director. Selected as
an astronaut candidate by NASA in June 1987, Foale has served as
Deputy Chief of the
Mission Development Branch in the Astronaut Office and as Head of the
Astronaut Office
Science Support Group. In preparation for a long-duration flight on
the Russian Space
Station Mir, Foale trained at the Cosmonaut Training Center, Star
City, Russia. Most
recently, Foale spent four months aboard the Russian Space Station
Mir. Dr. Foale will
discuss an application of computer algebra to a well-publicized
problem involving the
rotational dynamics of an orbiting space station.
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