Agile Disturbance-Free Payload

*† ‡ § ** The application of an advanced architecture in which the payload and the spacecraft bus are separate bodies that fly in close-proximity formation is considered for agile spacecraft. The proposed architecture provides a solution to the combined problems of payload pointing and isolation from spacecraft vibrations. The concept has far reaching implications to space borne missions with stringent pointing control and stability requirements allowing faster slews and uninterrupted mission during momentum dumping maneuvers. System level analysis is presented to assess the applicability of the proposed concept to missions requiring agility. Results from experimental demonstrations of agile maneuvering using a spacecraft hardware simulator are presented and demonstrate the feasibility of the concept. Results are presented for agile slewing, momentum dumping and isolation performance. Analysis and simulation results show good agreement with experimental data.