Fortescue P., Swinerd.G, Stark J. (ed.). Spacecraft systems engineering

Учебное пособие. - 4th ed. A john Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2011. — 710 р.ISBN: 978-0-470-75012-4 (hardback)
Space vehicles—Design and construction.
Astronautics—Systems engineering.Integration and verification small satellite engineering and applications product assurance
spacecraft system engineering.From introduction:
Man has only had the ability to operate spacecraft successfully since 1957, when the
Russian satellite Sputnik I was launched into orbit. At the time of writing (2010) the
Space Age is just over half a century old. In that time technology has made great strides,
and the Apollo human expedition to the Moon and back is now a rather distant memory.
In little more than five decades, unmanned explorer spacecraft have flown past all the
major bodies of the Solar System, apart from the ‘dwarf planet’ Pluto—this exception will
soon be remedied, however, by the ‘New Horizons’ spacecraft that is due to fly through
the Pluto-Charon system in 2015. Space vehicles have landed on the Moon and Venus,
and in recent years Mars has seen a veritable armada of orbiters, landers and rovers in
preparation for a hoped-for future human expedition to the red planet. The Galileo Jupiter
orbiter successfully deployed a probe in 1995, which ‘landed’ on the gaseous ‘surface’
of Jupiter. The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft has been a stunning success, entering orbit
around Saturn in 2004, and executing a perfect landing on Titan of the European built
Huygens probe in 2005. Minor bodies in the Solar System have also received the attention
of mission planners. The first landing on such a body was executed by the Near Earth
Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker spacecraft, when it touched down on the Eros
asteroid in February 2001. This was succeeded in 2005 by the attempted sampling of
material from the Itokawa asteroid by the Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft. Although the
sampling operation was unsuccessful, the spacecraft is now on a return journey to Earth
in the hope that some remnants of asteroid material may be found in its sealed sampling
chamber. Similarly, a prime objective of the ambitious European Rosetta programme is
to place a lander on a cometary body in 2014. There is also a growing awareness of the
impact threat posed by near-Earth asteroids and comets, which is driving research into
effective means of diverting such a body from a collision course with Earth.