Projects

Automated Rendezvous and Docking for Orion Spacecraft

In FY2006-2007 MitekAn worked on Automated Rendezvous and Docking Sensors (AD&DS) project, supporting NASA ARC task in a NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) led analysis and technology development for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CLV) Project. The MitekAn’s work was focused on Fault Tolerance and Redundancy Management of the spacecraft relative navigation sensors. The technical approach to sensor fault detection was through an optimal multi-model detection formulated in a moving horizon setting. The main idea is to use the reliable Inertial Navigation System (INS) data as a reference for detecting faults in the relative navigation sensor. The compative analysis and validation of the algorithms was carried out in an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study. The developed algorithm software was delivered to NASA for use in the Orion/Constrellation program.

The results are described in two papers:

The 2007 AIAA GN&C Conference paper: Fault Tolerant Relative Navigation using Inertial and Relative Sensors.

The 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference paper: Fault Tolerance of Relative Navigation Sensing in Docking Approach of Spacecraft.