Capabilities and Recent Projects of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Guidance and Control Section

This paper presents a survey of select flight projects and technology development efforts in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Guidance and Control (GNC) Section. This survey is not exhaustive, but it is intended to demonstrate the broad range of capabilities and areas of expertise held by the GNC section. The programs span the gamut of ground-only testbeds to Earth orbiters to deep space flyers and the technologies needed to pursue ever more daring and innovative missions. The GNC concepts and technologies presented in this paper are informed by experience and includes autonomous operation, and systems-level thinking. This paper will also present directions and interests the Section will continue pursuing as it develops new GNC systems for flight.

本文针对美国国家航空航天局喷气推进实验室（NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory）制导与控制（Guidance and Control，GNC）部门的部分航天飞行项目与技术研发工作展开综述。本次综述并非包罗万象，旨在展现GNC部门所具备的全方位能力与专精研究方向。相关项目覆盖了从纯地面测试平台、地球轨道飞行器到深空探测器的全谱系，同时涵盖了支撑愈发大胆且创新性航天任务所需的各类核心技术。本文所阐述的GNC概念与技术均基于工程实践经验，涵盖自主运行技术与系统级设计思维。此外，本文还将介绍该部门在开发新型飞行用GNC系统过程中持续推进的研究方向与重点关注领域。