Cassini-Huygens probe and center of mass

[Pipcard]

The Huygens probe was attached to Cassini's side. When it was jettisoned, how did Cassini account for the change in center of mass?

[magnemoe]

Good question, however center of mass is mostly important if you do trust. it has two main engines so it might reduce trust of one of them to compensate.

For rotation you simply calculate it in. You will always get center of mass changes, using fuel change it.

In KSP we can not set trust level for each engine however I believe some mods allows this.

To compensate KSP reaction wheels can handle off center trust. this does not work in real world as the wheel whould be forced to spin faster and faster.

Edited October 9, 2013 by magnemoe

[Psycix]

It is just a wild guess, but I'd say they rotate the engine nozzles to line up with the CoM, aka thrust vectoring.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Psycix

[Mr Shifty]

It's not just probe release that affects center of mass, but propellant slosh, antenna cantilever pendulum motion, etc. The working engine (one of the two engines is a redundant spare) is constantly gimballing to account for that stuff during a burn. Here are some details:

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/34920/1/93-0360.pdf