KDC Assignment 2: Simulated Spaceship Landing 
by aburks on Feb.21, 2011, under Classwork
For the second assignment in KDC the group needed to control a spaceship and land it on a free rotating Alien Artifact. This was particularly difficult because the artifact didn’t have uniform density, so it would spin seemingly randomly in 3-space. The only feedback we had on the artifact was the relative location of its 8 corners. After observing it briefly, we were able to determine the principal axis of inertial and predict its motion using forward dynamics. Here is a video of our lander approaching and docking with the artifact. Note that while it looks like we just “stick” to the artifact, we are actually using thrusters to stay perfectly adjacent to it without ever making contact.
