Gyroscopes and spaceships

[Kimberly]

I'm working on a spaceship design for ships that will be combat in deep space. I want to use a gyroscope, not for stabilization (but that is there too), but for moving the orientation of the aircraft only.

Don't worry about size, g-force, velocity direction, or anything else here. We're just focusing on the orientation of the spaceship itself.

My idea is to steal angular momentum from the gyroscope, thus allowing the craft to turn. I realize that turning the aircraft will have no effect on which direction it is moving. That's what I want. I basically want these things to be flying turrets that can flip around and shoot in whatever direction the pilot wants.

My question is, do I need three gyroscopes for this (all spinning in different X, Y, Z access - this way slowing or speeding the wheel will cause a change in the direction the aircraft points) or can I get away with 1 gyroscope and 3 gimbals that are situated in the different planes that can rotate back and forth (as opposed to just spinning around), thus using their weight to change to torque?

I'm thinking I can do either, but gyroscopes are something I don't have a lot of experience with and spacecraft that do use these, use them for stability more than say, suddenly flipping upside down and pointing in a new direction.

[M.C.]

@Kimberly I'm not an expert here, but I think one gyroscope with three gimbles might be the way to go.

I think using their weight to change the torque would give you a faster and more direct reaction to orientation than having to control the speed of three wheels. Plus, you probably wouldn't need much pressure to assist the weight into modifying the orientation. I hope I'm making sense.

It seems to me that having three separate gyroscopes might cause delay in orientation movement since you'd have to modify all three to arrived at the desired orientation. Also, if all three are moving at varying speeds, though that would affect orientation, it would also affect the angular momentum of each, and this will in turn affect your stability. I know you said not to worry about that, but since you also mentioned stability was part of it, I thought I'd bring it up.

I think it would be a lot more to worry about if you go with three gyroscopes instead of one. Hope this helps.

[Kimberly]

Thanks! It would help, but I made it through a bunch of research and figured it out over the weekend, hehe!

You're close, though I think you'd be surprised how stable gyroscopes are once you get them spinning. In fact, the three system (plus a fourth backup) is used on the space station to keep it steady.

I won't go into it all, but it's pretty cool. The plan is to explain it all in the book. :D

Short version: I'll be doing 1 gyroscope + 2 gimbals on the manned ships only, because the stability is so vital, plus helping reduce g-forces when making turns. The unmanned ships will be using fuel to make the sudden turns, because it's faster than the gyroscope itself and computers don't care about g-forces.

[M.C.]

Kimberly wrote: "Thanks! It would help, but I made it through a bunch of research and figured it out over the weekend, hehe!

You're close, though I think you'd be surprised how stable gyroscopes are once you get t..."

Great to hear you got it figured out :-)