The Small-Body Dynamics Toolkit (SBDT) v5.0 is a collection of primitive-body-specific trajectory design and analysis tools written in MATLAB®. The SBDT gives the user the capabilities to propagate, analyze, and visualize spacecraft trajectories and the dynamical environment near realistic asteroid, comet,...

Typical spacecraft thruster configurations are often unable to provide full six-degree-of-freedom control and may have unwanted interaction between their attitude control and trajectory control functions, have undesirably high instantaneous electrical power demands, and use more thrusters than...

Some of the key challenges of planetary entry are to dissipate the large kinetic energy of the entry vehicle and to land with precision. Past missions to Mars were based on unguided entry, where entry vehicles carried payloads of less than 0.6 T and landed...

The Rendezvous and Proximity Operations Program (RPOP) is realtime guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) domain piloting-aid software that provides 3D Orbiter graphics and runs on the Space Shuttle’s Criticality-3 Payload and General Support Computer (PGSC) in the crew cockpit. This software...

An updated version of the Platform Independent Software Components for the Exploration of Space (PISCES) software library is available. A previous version was reported in “Library for Developing Spacecraft-Mission-Planning Software” (MSC-22983), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 7 (July 2001), page 52. To recapitulate: This...

Software for a system to control the trajectories of multiple spacecraft flying in formation is being developed to reflect underlying concepts of (1) a decentralized approach to guidance and control and (2) reconfigurability of the control system, including reconfigurability of the software...

The Platform Independent Software Components for the Exploration of Space (PISCES) software library provides for web-based, collaborative development of computer programs for planning trajectories and other trajectory-related aspects of spacecraft-mission design. The PISCES library...