Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited

Tetsuya Nagase

Atsushi Sasaki

Toyonori Kobayakawa

A spacecraft including: an engine; a thrust vector control device controlling a thrust vector as a direction of a thrust acting on the spacecraft; and a main control device configured to acquire state quantities of the spacecraft in a powered descending in which the spacecraft is guided to a target point while the engine generates the thrust, and generate a throttling command by which combustion of the engine is controlled and an operation command by which the thrust vector control device is operated. The state quantities contain a first acceleration parameter and a second acceleration parameter. The first and second acceleration parameters are calculated as coefficients A and B obtained by fitting based on acceleration of the spacecraft previously detected, supposing the following equation is satisfied between a reciprocal number 1/a of the acceleration a of the spacecraft and time t:1/&#x2003;&#x2003;(1).

Spacecraft and control device

A flight control method and device for correcting a reference trajectory based on a distance from a current position to a target position in a spacecraft in flight. A CPU included in the spacecraft generates a reference trajectory which is a trajectory for allowing the spacecraft in flight to arrive at the target position on a celestial body with the atmosphere, and which is identified based on velocity or energy of the spacecraft and on drag acceleration of the spacecraft. The CPU calculates a ratio between the range that is a distance from the current position based on the reference trajectory to the target position, and the real range that is a real distance from a current position to the target position, and corrects the reference trajectory by calculating the drag acceleration in the reference trajectory using the calculated ratio.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Tetsuya Nagase