Simulate Spacecraft GN&C Demo

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First off I want to say hello!

I am just getting started with my first Arduino project so please ignore my ignorance

I am leading my senior design project which is comprised of 15 Mechanical, Aero, and Industrial and Systems Engineering undergrads (actually about 24 when you count our partner universities in SC and Paris France that report to us). Unfortunately no EE’s, and I myself am an ISE so after you crack the inevitable “Imaginary Engineer” jokes perhaps you could offer some insight as to the feasibility of my idea for an open house demonstration.

Our mission is to design a spacecraft capable of travelling to and performing science both in orbit and on the surface of Enceladus (a very intriguing moon of Saturn). After the first semester I feel that the weakest subsystem on my team is Guidance Navigation and Control. This is essentially used for attitude control of the spacecraft and controlling a soft lander upon descent. Given our weakness, I figured that that jumping headfirst into some project with which I have NO experience would be a fantastic way to show our abilities!

What I would like to do is have a demo where I could hold a mock spacecraft with LED’s where the GN&C thrusters would be located. I would then like to be able to tilt the spacecraft and power LEDS to display how the thrusters would fire.

I currently have an Arduino Uno R3 and a basic starter kit. I have looked at some IMU’s (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11055) and the like but have ZERO experience doing something like this.

Can you guys/gals help point me in the right direction?

Thanks so much!

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GNC to another planet (or moon) is a non-trivial task. It’s generally divided into phases, with a team for each phase. Phases might include getting out of Earth orbit to the first trajectory, correcting that trajectory, all manner of orbital assistance manuvers (to go to deep space on a min fuel course), final alignment for orbital insertion, insertion and then the EDL phase. Probably some other parts I left out. Just where in flight is your demo to start and end ? And how large in scope and how accurate are you trying to be ?

NASA has a lot of data on the Apollo missions pertaining to trajectory and the calculations involved. There are a number of enthusiast sites that are probably easier to understand. I’ll see if I can’t resurrect some old links (from a notebook that died). Mission planning for the latest Mars mission and perhaps for Cassini might also be useful.

My advice would be to start small and expand as you can the scope of what you’re going to simulate. Just station keeping while in orbit over Enceladus, perhaps aiming the spacecraft to align with surface features, changing orbit altitude to do high res and low res mapping would be a project all in itself. How you got to that orbit and/or landing on Enceladus would be out of scope, at least until you think you’ve mastered the first (easy) part.