Mass Property Estimation for Mated Flight Control

Mass property of space vehicle changes apparently during and after mating and cannot be predicted or measured at times, yet it needs to be accurately known for mated flight control or attitude control and momentum management. A discrete Kalman Filter (KF) based estimation method is developed, measurements of single point acceleration, angular velocity and angular acceleration are employed to extract the inertia matrix and mass center. Simulation results show that the method can be used for continues online estimation without propellant consumption.