scenarioTwoChargedSC

Overview

Demonstrates the interaction between two charged spacecraft in a leader/follower configuration, the effect electrostatic forces/torques have on the separation of the two spacecrafts and how to visualize the simulation data in Vizard. The scenario demonstrates how to use Module: msmForceTorque to calculate the electrostatic forces using the Multi-Sphere Method. Each spacecraft is represented by multiple spheres each with a designated location and radius. The locations and radii data is stored in GOESR_bus_80_sphs.csv, however any appropriate csv file can be used. Both spacecraft have a negative charged potential. The purpose of this script is to show how to set up the Multi-Sphere Method for charged spacecraft and apply the external forces/torques to the spacecrafts as well as to show how to store the Basilisk simulation data to be able to visualize both satellite’s motions within the Vizard application.

The script is found in the folder basilisk/examples and executed by using:

python3 scenarioTwoChargedSC.py

The simulation layout is shown in the following illustration. A single simulation process is created which contains both the leader spacecraft and the follower object as well as the multisphere model for each of the spacecrafts.

../_images/test_scenarioTwoChargedSC.svg

When the simulation completes, several plots are shown for the separation distance of the two satellites, the relative orbit of the follower spacecraft around the leader spacecraft, and the Multisphere Model representation for both spacecraft with a color bar that denotes charge of the spheres.

Illustration of Simulation Results

show_plots = True
../_images/scenarioTwoChargedSC1.svg../_images/scenarioTwoChargedSC2.svg../_images/scenarioTwoChargedSC3.svg../_images/scenarioTwoChargedSC4.svg
scenarioTwoChargedSC.run(show_plots)[source]

The scenarios can be run with the following setup parameters:

Parameters

show_plots (bool) – Determines if the script should display plots