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The Guidance, Navigation, and Control Lead basically is in charge of
all of the components to make sure the spacecraft is pointed where the scientists
want it to be pointed. We track how the Earth, how the satellite is
moving around the Earth, and how the Earth is moving around the Sun. We have
algorithms on-board that allow us to turn the spacecraft one direction
or another to make sure that we keep it thermally safe and power positive.
We have other algorithms that keep our orbit, because the orbit degrades over time
so we have what we call thruster maneuvers and delta-v maneuvers which allow us
to raise or lower the orbit. We have a very large spinning instrument
on the GPM called the GPM Microwave Imager,
GMI. Because it's a spinning object, it introduces jitter to the whole
spacecraft, so the whole spacecraft kinda shakes with it. We can't test that on the ground,
so it'll be a nice culmination to the seven years of work that I've spent on GPM.
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