Slew Maneuvers of Large Flexible Spacecrafts

In this paper, the dynamics and control of arbitrary slew maneuvers of a large flexible spacecraft are developed. The dynamics of slew maneuvers are nonlinear and include the coupling between the rigid orbiter and the flexible appendage. A decentralized control scheme is used to perform a large angle slew maneuver about an arbitrary axis in space and to suppress the vibrations of the flexible appendage during and after the maneuver. The method developed in this paper is applied to NASA Spacecraft Control Laboratory Experiment (SCOLE) test article.