Error analysis of system mass properties

An attempt is made to verify the margin of system mass properties over values that are sufficient for the support of such other critical system requirements as those of dynamic control. System nominal mass properties are designed on the basis of an imperfect understanding of the mass and location of constituent elements; the effect of such element errors is to introduce net errors into calculated system mass properties. The direct measurement of system mass properties is, however, impractical. Attention is given to these issues in the case of the Galileo spacecraft.