Attitude Dynamics & Control

Attitude dynamics and control is a term used in rocketry and spacecraft.

Related Topics:
Rocketry - Spacecraft

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The attitude of a body is its orientation as perceived in a certain frame of reference; providing a vector along which a spacecraft is pointing is a description of its attitude.

Related Topics:
Frame of reference - Vector

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Dynamics is the term for the modeling of changing conditions, due to external forces acting on the body.

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Control is the purposeful, designed manipulation of those external forces to determine the craft's attitude. Dynamic response is guaranteed in any natural setting, ergo control is essential to useful application of aerospace craft, as any use of said craft involves moving something from a specific somewhere to another specific somewhere else, as efficiently as possible.

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Dynamics as a science began with Isaac Newton's , F = m a, and the seed of it in the more specific discipline of controls remains such, though controls itself, both classical and modern, would not exist without the advancements of Leonhard Euler. It was he who derived and systematized the vector-operations and equations that enable the successful modeling of complex dynamical systems.

Related Topics:
Isaac Newton - Leonhard Euler

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Actual math to follow

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