Back to Kinematics: Describing the Motions of Spacecraft
University of Colorado Boulder

Kinematics: Describing the Motions of Spacecraft

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.

Status: Engineering Analysis
Status: Global Positioning Systems
AdvancedCourse29 hours

Featured reviews

SM

5.0Reviewed Oct 19, 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.

SN

5.0Reviewed Sep 13, 2020

Best technical course on coursera. Instructor is full of knowledge and is one of the best teachers i have came across.

MK

5.0Reviewed Aug 12, 2020

Lectures are great and professor method of teaching is superb i would highly recommend this course for space enthusiasts

SV

5.0Reviewed Aug 6, 2020

I couldn't be more happy with this course I enjoyed every second of it... and yeah... also the assignments

OK

5.0Reviewed Feb 22, 2020

if you want to learn about spacecraft attitude and would like to get experience in describing the motion of spacecraft as well as dynamics of satellites.This course will be first step.

SI

5.0Reviewed Apr 14, 2022

A beautiful course by an amzing professor. Everything is just so clear now in Attitude representations. Thank you very much, Professor Schaub.

ML

5.0Reviewed Nov 20, 2023

Absolutely recommend. Really liked the way the professor explains his lessons and the content is top notch

MA

5.0Reviewed Feb 8, 2018

Great professor. The material is very focused on space systems, but can easily be used in other robotics applications

SS

5.0Reviewed Aug 18, 2020

Amazing and passionate teaching. Not ever boring. Does not feel like an online class. Thanks to the professor.

DK

5.0Reviewed Jul 22, 2020

A good course for those interested aerospace, as well as those just looking to further their mathematical skills.

DM

5.0Reviewed Nov 10, 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.

CR

4.0Reviewed Dec 27, 2018

Very good course! Few of the quizzes have the wrong answers marked as correct which can be confusing when learning the material (see the discussion forum for specifics).

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