Control testbeds and flight demonstrations: transitioning theory to application

Over the past decade, the Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) and Space Systems Laboratory (SSL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed and operated numerous dynamics and controls testbeds and flight experiments in university laboratories, government facilities and Shuttle/MIR. These programs have been in support of multi-instrument pointing platforms, acoustic control, and space-based optical interferometry, a diverse combination of experiments in a wide variety of environments and at many levels of technology maturity has given the SERC/SSL insights into the benefits and drawbacks of conducting such programs. This paper elaborates upon the manner in which experimental objectives were developed, lessons learned in the design and operation of these experiments, as well as the experiences of how such experiments have changed the posture of the associated controls technology from the perspective of readiness for insertion into various applications.