QUOTE (Paolo @ Jan 2 2009, 06:54 AM)
![*](http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/style_images/ip.boardpr/post_snapback.gif)
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets paper now available for free
Readers might also be interested in a review I did a couple of years ago on spin of
planetary probes (emphasis was on descent, rather than entry, but it touches on it
and summarizes the various spin rates and spin-separation-umbilical designs used.
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rlorenz/spinjbis.pdfI have to say in the process of researching this, I find it very difficult to find
*pre-Mission* calculations of release spin rates for entry vehicles. Notionally the
spin rate should be chosen based on angle of attack tolerance at the entry
interface (which in turn depends on targeting accuracy, as well as the moment
of inertia, the expected disturbance torques and the coast time) as well as
dynamic stability during the entry itself (the subject of this paper). While there
are always post-mission reconstructions etc., I haven't come across a paper
saying 'This is the spin rate we chose and this is why'. (Maybe because of fear
one gets it wrong..?)
This Beage/J.Spacecraft paper may be getting more attention than it deserves -
I can't see any obvious problems with it, but the main message is 'look, here is a
simulation that diverges in the transition regime'. It would be more useful to
show that the same simulation code yields survivable entries for MPF, MER etc.,
and to show what the 'correct' spin rate for Beagle should have been (if, indeed,
any spin rate would have worked....)
A complex problem, verging (as another poster noted) on a black art.