| Necessary and sufficient conditions for asymptotic stability are developed for symmetric spinning bodies with axial forcing and dissipative internal mass motion of various types. Results show that spin about the minor axis is asymptotically stable provided that three conditions are satisfied: (1) the axial force magnitude is sufficiently large, (2) the mass motion is sufficiently stiff, and (3) the mass motion occurs aft of the system mass center. Under these same conditions, spin about the major axis may be unstable. Numerical studies show that a passive control device with such characteristics can be designed to attenuate and/or suppress the coning of prolate spinners such as those transfer orbit boost vehicles which have recently been plagued by unexpectedly pronounced coning instabilities. |
