Closed-loop control of sloshing fuel in a spinning spacecraft
Abstract
New-generation space missions require satellites to carry substantial amounts of liquid propellant, making it essential to analyse the coupled control-structure-propellant dynamics in detail. While Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) offers high-fidelity predictions, its computational cost limits its use in iterative design. Equivalent Mechanical Models (EMMs) provide a faster alternative, though their predictive performance, especially in closed-loop scenarios, remains largely unexplored. This work presents a comparative analysis of a spacecraft under feedback control, using both CFD and a reduced-order sloshing model. Results show good agreement, validating the simplified model for the manoeuvrer considered. This validation enables efficient sensitivity and stability studies, offering a practical tool for early-stage spacecraft design.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2510.08121,
title = {Closed-loop control of sloshing fuel in a spinning spacecraft},
author = {Umberto Zucchelli and Miguel Alfonso Mendez and Annafederica Urbano and Sebastien Vincent-Bonnieu and Piotr Wenderski and Francesco Sanfedino},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.08121},
year = {2025}
}