Explorer 1 was the first satellite sent into space by the United States. It was a scientific instrument that led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt. In order to keep its orientation, the satellite was spin stabilized. Unexpectedly, shortly after launch, Explorer 1 flipped the axis of rotation. The animation below shows, on the left, Explorer 1 in its initial state after launch, rotating about the axis of minimum moment of inertia. On the right side, 100 minutes later in the simulation, Explorer 1 rotates about the axis of maximum moment of inertia. This unintended behavior could not be explained immediately. Finally, structural damping in the four whip-like antennas was made responsible for the flip (explained here).
The flip can be reproduced with MapleSim using flexible beam components with damping enabled. Without damping and without slight angular misalignment at launch the flip does not manifest.
The simulation is only of qualitative nature since data of the antennas could not be found. On images of Explorer 1, the antennas look prebend and show large deflections of about 45 degrees under gravity. Since rotation of the satelite stretches the antennas, no modeling of large deflections needed to be considered in the simulation and rather stiff antennas (2 mm in diameter) without spheres at their ends were used. (Modeling large deflections with high fidelity might only be considered if the unfolding process of the antennas at launch is of interest. This should be modeled with several flexible beam components.)
The graph bellow shows the evolution of the angular velocity in x direction. Conservation of angular momentum reduces the angular velocity when the satellite starts flipping towards a rotation about the axis of maximum moment of inertia.
Not long ago such simulations would have been worth a doctoral thesis. Today its rather straight forward to reproduce the flip with MapleSim.
Not so easy is the calculation of energy and angular momentum (for the purpose of observing how well numerics preserve physical quantities in rather long calculations. After all, the solver does not know the physical context). Such calculations would require access to the inertia matrix of the cylinder component including a coordinate transform into the frame of reference where the vector of rotation can be measured.
In case such calculations are possible with MapleSim, it would be nice if someone can update the model or at least indicate how calculations can be done.
Explorer_1_Parameters_and_links.mw
On a side note: I learned from the flip in an excellent series of lectures on dynamics. Wherever our professor could, he came up with animation in hardware. In this case, he could only provide an exciting story about the space race and sometimes fruitful mistakes in science. That’s why I still remember it.