My first technical paper to be accepted for publication in the proceedings of a major society was in 1971 at the 17th Annual Conference of the American Astronautical Society. The title was, ‘Skewed vs Orthogonal Reaction Wheels for Outer Planet Exploration.’
It involved the optimum configuration of reaction wheels by which to perform attitude corrections based on star tracking in the guidance and navigation of a spacecraft heading to the outer planets. Several innovative approaches to their orientation, use in combination, and failure mode switching to enhance reliability were analyzed. This technological research accompanied preparations for The Grand Tour that refers to NASA’s mission to launch a series of robotic space probes that would take advantage of a rare planetary alignment to explore the outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Such an alignment only occurs once every 175 years. It allowed for a gravity-assisted trajectory, enabling a single spacecraft to visit multiple planets, requiring less fuel. That became the mission of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft: to provide groundbreaking discoveries about those distant planets and beyond. Some of its systems have been turned off in recent years, but I suspect its attitude reference capabilities will be the last to go.
Today I read that fifty years after launch, Voyager is now one ‘light day’ (16,100,000,000 miles) away from earth. That is but one small step for man since the closest star other than the sun is Proxima Centauri that is more than four ‘light years’ away. Thus, in 7,774 years Voyager will have gone far enough to reach our nearest neighbor.
I am proud to have been a part of that small step.
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