Talk:Spacecraft flight dynamics

message: I think this page can be merged into a more general topic of Attitude_dynamics_and_control s1 17:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mergeto 

message: I suggest undoing the redirection of Attitude control to this article. Since the redirection and merge, this article has not been expanded to include any dynamics per se. Without having that material, the former name better applies to the current content. (sdsds - talk) 02:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undoing redirection from Attitude control  

message: It starts:
Attitude control is control of the orientation of a ships, spacecraft, or other flight vehicle, either relative to the celestial sphere or to a gravitating body influencing its flight path.
In reality the article is about spacecraft attitude control.  The "attitude control of ships" is for example quite another matter (automatically because of the shape of the body floating on the water, the compass for the heading).
For spacecraft the main split should be "spin stabilized" versus "3 axis stabilized". The last term is not even mentioned!
For "3 axis stabilized" the term "slew" should be explained! Another article would like to have a reference to "slew"!
Stamcose (talk) 15:22, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and would support almost any edit that modifies the article in the ways you describe. Specifically, this article should be about the techniques used to maintain and alter the attitude of a spacecraft, and the reasons why it is important to do so. The specific components of an attitude control system would be better discussed in that article than in this one. Can we come up with a proposal on how to restructure the article (i.e. change the sections around) so future content edits are more likely to take it in the right direction? (sdsds - talk) 22:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expanding and stressing on spacecraft attitude control

message: I have added an  template to more clearly help readers get to the correct flight dynamics article.  However, I think there is a substantial amount of decent material included in the Flight dynamics (aircraft) article that should be, at minimum, looked at for ideas of what ought to be included to improve this article.  In saying this, I do not mean all the technical equations and calculus, but I do think that clear understanding of pitch, yaw, roll and translation for the lay reader would be as helpful here as it is in the aircraft article.  Probably some other ideas as well.  What do other editors observe might be helpful?  I will do some work to look for graphics that might help as well.  N2e (talk) 03:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duality between  ''Flight dynamics (aircraft)'' and ''Flight dynamics (satellites)'' 

message: I think we should swap the contents between the Flight dynamics (satellites) and Flight dynamics (spacecraft) articles, thus making the "satellites" article a re-direct to the "spacecraft" article. All the artificial satellites are spacecraft, and not vice-versa. Since this article deals with more general concept of the spacecraft flight dynamics (not just that of satellites), this should justify my proposition. cherkash (talk) 06:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I agree that the current article name may not be the best one.  But it appears that there is only one article, this one, Flight dynamics (satellites), and that the other, Flight dynamics (spacecraft) merely redirects to this one.  So what name do you think best for an article on this topic?  Are you saying that Flight dynamics (spacecraft) is the more general term and therefore, any satellite flight dynamics would be a subset of that?  N2e (talk) 17:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought my statement was clear (along with being precise). Apparently not. So specifically, I suggest putting the current contents of the "satellites" article into "spacecraft" article (by removing the re-direct there), and making this article (the "satellite" one) into a re-direct to the "spacecraft". cherkash (talk) 01:17, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

text: I don't understand your comment.  How does "There are a fair amount of interplanetary probes in the Solar System that one possibly could call "Artificial planets" but certainly not "Artificial satellites"!" relate to the Name of this article?  Cheers.  N2e (talk) 20:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

text: DONE!  User:Anthony Appleyard has helpfully completed the move, after what I see was a lot of prep work by User:Cherkash.  Article is now entitled Flight dynamics (spacecraft).  Thanks Anthony and Cherkash!  N2e (talk) 13:23, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name of the article 

message: There isn't much on the Attitude_control_system page that isn't covered here. 
This might possibly include a change of name from Flight_dynamics to "Spacecraft Attitude and Orbit Control" or some such.
LunaCity (talk) 02:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, perhaps I don't really object so much to the merge proposal, as to the incorrect focus of this article. I tried to fix the lead to summarize what the proper definition should be. The article's major problem now is that it's way unbalanced toward attitude control, and "orbit control" isn't really the best description for the navigation and control (flight trajectory) aspect. Flight dynamics comes into play from the moment of liftoff, through termination of the flight (including re-entry if applicable). JustinTime55 (talk) 17:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

text: I renew my strenuous objection, and offer a counter-proposal. It looks like this article was orginally created as attitude control (spacecraft), then someone got the mistaken idea it was appropriate to move it to Flight dynamics, which is a totally separate (even if related) topic. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from proposal 

message: This is what I believe should really be done, so I have added the appropriate tags. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Counter-proposal: Move-portions to Attitude control system

message: Neither spin-stabilized satellite nor 3-axis stabilized spacecraft are more than stubs, despite having been created in 2006 and 2008, respectively. It's unclear if they even deserve their own articles - in my opinion, they would be much better as expanded subsections of this much more well-maintained and well-linked article. Kolbasz (talk) 11:31, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: STRONGLY DISAGREE - per the above. This "well-maintained and well-linked" article concerns Attitude control (spacecraft) rather than flight dynamics, so your merge would be more approriate there. JustinTime55 (talk) 15:09, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

text: CLARIFICATION: I don't disagree (or know if I agree), strongly or otherwise, about this merge suggestion's basic premise, that those articles should be merged with what is really Attitude control (spacecraft) (this discussion should be moved there); it's just inappropriate to merge them here into Flight dynamics. JustinTime55 (talk) 19:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

text: I'm with JT55, I support the basic idea of the merge, since those two articles are not deserving separate article status.  However, we should probably merge into Attitude control (spacecraft) rather than the Flight dynamics (spacecraft) article.  I will suggest that the proposer consider a new proposal, on Kolbasz's Talk page.  N2e (talk) 03:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sure thing. As long as those almost-orphaned stubs end up somewhere. :) Kolbasz (talk) 21:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Attitude Control (spacecraft) gets my vote on where they should be moved Ken Tholke 22:50, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from spin-stabilized satellite and 3-axis stabilized spacecraft 

message: The source cited says:
:"Aircraft Flight Dynamics, MAE 331, is designed to introduce students to the performance, stability, and control [emphasis added] of aircraft ranging from micro-uninhabited air vehicles through general aviation, jet transport, and fighter aircraft to Mars planes and re-entry vehicles."
The course is about aircraft, but flight dynamics applies to both types of vehicles (which operate in slightly different venues), as Stengel indicates by including Mars craft in his course. There is a reason why the discipline is called Aerospace engineering.
This article originally, incorrectly defined the topic as being exclusively concerned with roll, pitch and yaw (Attitude control (spacecraft)), with absolutely no verification whatever. When I corrected the article, I wanted to provide verification and, absent explicit verification from NASA, I found what I considered to be the next best thing: a college course description on the subject. Why isn't a college professor's description a reliable source? JustinTime55 (talk) 19:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No. That's not a wp:reliable source, it's not published, and that's a definition of that particular course, not necessarily a definition of this article's topic. It's also quite ambiguous as to whether it covers trajectory control or whether it's just attitude or not. I really don't care either way, but that's not a reference, and to the extent it is, it doesn't even define what we want.GliderMaven (talk) 20:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious 

message: The article reads,
For a spacecraft, these forces are of three types:propulsive force (usually provided by the vehicle's engine thrust); gravitational force exerted by the Earth or other celestial bodies; and aerodynamic lift and drag (when flying in the atmosphere of the Earth or other body, such as Mars or Venus)
Only three forces? Off the top of my head the article is missing at least two more: torques cause by the interaction of electrical currents in the spacecraft with the magnetic fields of the body being orbited (see Magnetorquer), as well as solar pressure which can induce torques in the spacecraft and is the whole principle behind solar sails. Is there a reason I'm missing that these aren't included? Otherwise I'll go through my university textbooks and source these additions to the article. R0uge (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The three forces listed are those most commonly encountered by every spacecraft launched to date, and the forces are quite strong. The other two were probably overlooked because they are somewhat exotic; "Magnetorque" is a relatively new idea, and is used only for attitude control, not propulsion. And solar pressure (a linear force, not a torque) is quite weak, so far only having affected interplanetary probe trajectories and being used actively only once on MESSENGER. Other than this, solar sails are still theoretical. I would support adding an adjective like "generally" ("...these forces are generally of three types:"), then adding solar pressure (placed in context); and then mentioning magnetic force. We should follow the principle of WP:WEIGHT. JustinTime55 (talk) 13:48, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  As the article covers both translation and orientation of spacecraft, I think external forces that only induce torques should absolutely be mentioned. But I agree with weighting them less and throwing them under an 'other forces' section, I'll probably take a stab at it this week. (As a side note, solar pressure is indeed a linear force, but as the center of pressure of a spacecraft is rarely aligned with its center of mass, this usually induces a torque as well. But I digress.) R0uge (talk) 16:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magnetic torques and solar pressure? 

message: For reference purposes, here is a brief summary of the major history of this article, which began its life on a completely different topic:
*2 March 2005: Created by an IP editor, under the title Attitude Dynamics & Control
*10 November 2005: moved by  to MOS-conformant Attitude dynamics and control
*   December 2008: tagged uncited
* 8 November 2010: moved by  to Flight dynamics (satellites)
*21 January 2011: moved by  to Attitude control (spacecraft)
*22 January 2011‎: moved by  to Flight dynamics (satellites)
*22 January 2011: moved by  to Flight dynamics (spacecraft)
*14 November 2011: yours truly discovers the page, woefully mis-scoped (lead sentence defines it as: ); begins first wave cleanup and expansion to include all aspects of spacecraft flight dynamics; runs out of steam 25 December.
*26 June 2018: begin second wave of expansion / cleanup. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  I just did a bunch of cleanup to bring this closer to the norms of WP:MOSMATH. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article history 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Flight dynamics (fixed-wing aircraft) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 09:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress