1. The pilot who chose the least bad direction
James S. A. Corey’s The Expanse returns one last time for this arc because the best attitude is often the least bad compromise: enough Sun for power, enough Earth for comms, enough cold sky for heat, and enough target for the mission. The desktop must learn to make these compromises on its own.
Entries 649 through 651 wondered about autonomous attitude and pointing management, pointing trade-offs and slew scheduling, and what the capability needs from the desktop. This entry closes the arc.
2. What was learned
The autonomous attitude and pointing management wondering gives the desktop four constraints:
- Autonomy fills the gaps between ground contact. Pre-planned attitude schedules are necessary but not sufficient.
- Pointing trade-offs are unavoidable. Solar, communications, thermal, and payload goals conflict; the platform must choose or articulate.
- Slew scheduling must respect physics. Torque, rate, and momentum limits constrain what is possible.
- Policy must bound the autonomy. Mode priorities, keep-out zones, slew limits, customer windows, override, and recovery rules prevent the platform from pointing itself into trouble.
3. What was decided
The desktop will adopt autonomous attitude and pointing management as a closed-loop capability with ground override. This means:
- The platform will monitor attitude, actuator state, orbit geometry, and payload requests.
- It will switch between pointing modes and schedule slews according to mission phase and constraints.
- It will resolve conflicts using predefined priorities and keep-out zones.
- It will optimize orientation for power, thermal, and link margin when these goals are compatible.
- Ground can override any autonomous pointing decision and can update priorities and constraints.
- All pointing events are logged and reported to ground.
4. Interaction with earlier arcs
The autonomous pointing management arc connects directly to:
- the GNC reading arc: sensors, actuators, and modes define what is possible;
- the power arc: solar pointing drives generation;
- the thermal arc: radiator pointing drives heat rejection;
- the communications arc: antenna pointing drives link quality;
- the autonomous power budgeting arc: pointing modes have different power profiles.
5. What remains open
The exact sensor suite, actuator sizing, and slew optimization depend on the platform’s inertia, payload requirements, and mission orbit. The wondering arc has set the strategy; detailed GNC design comes later.
6. What this changes
- The autonomous attitude and pointing management wondering arc is closed.
- The desktop inherits a closed-loop pointing management capability with ground override.
- The next arc will design a test for attitude determination and control fault recovery.