Back to Kinematics: Describing the Motions of Spacecraft
Learner Reviews & Feedback for Kinematics: Describing the Motions of Spacecraft by University of Colorado Boulder
327 ratings
About the Course
The movement of bodies in space (like spacecraft, satellites, and space stations) must be predicted and controlled with precision in order to ensure safety and efficacy. Kinematics is a field that develops descriptions and predictions of the motion of these bodies in 3D space. This course in Kinematics covers four major topic areas: an introduction to particle kinematics, a deep dive into rigid body kinematics in two parts (starting with classic descriptions of motion using the directional cosine matrix and Euler angles, and concluding with a review of modern descriptors like quaternions and Classical and Modified Rodrigues parameters). The course ends with a look at static attitude determination, using modern algorithms to predict and execute relative orientations of bodies in space.
After this course, you will be able to...
* Differentiate a vector as seen by another rotating frame and derive frame dependent velocity and acceleration vectors
* Apply the Transport Theorem to solve kinematic particle problems and translate between various sets of attitude descriptions
* Add and subtract relative attitude descriptions and integrate those descriptions numerically to predict orientations over time
* Derive the fundamental attitude coordinate properties of rigid bodies and determine attitude from a series of heading measurements
The material covered is taking from the book "Analytical Mechanics of Space Systems" available at https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/book/10.2514/4.105210.
Top reviews
SM
Oct 18, 2017
Brilliant classes! Absolutely brilliant, enjoyed every bit of it. All you need is that you should love Physics and Maths to attend these classes. If you do, it is an enriching experience for you.
DM
Nov 9, 2021
Great professor, and the content is interesting. The assignments where you had to write your own code to determine the spacecraft attitudes were very useful for applying what you had learnt.
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101 - 102 of 102 Reviews for Kinematics: Describing the Motions of Spacecraft
By Arin S
•Jan 4, 2025
nothing more than a yt course as no teacher answers your questions, you are left with only your peers to help each other. Wouldnt recommend purchasing the course
By Gerardo A B S
•Aug 11, 2024
Impreciso, tedioso, redundante