Appeal No. 96-1999
Application 08/216,382
This panel of the board understands the examiner’s
assessment of the Hubert patent relative to the claimed sub-
ject matter, as set forth in the answer. However, for reasons
explained, infra, we are not in accord therewith.
At this point, we note that appellant seeks to
adjust the rate of depletion of propellant from propellant
tanks on a
spacecraft to maintain attitude during velocity change (speci-
fication, page 1). As stated by appellant (specification,
pages 8 and 9)
propellant is drawn preferentially from
one of the propellant tanks, such as the
propellant tank closer to the center of
mass, to thereby tend to shift the center
of mass toward the thrust axis in the case
of CM offset, or in a direction to compen-
sate for the unwanted torque in other
cases. Referring to FIGURE 2, tank 210a
would be pressurized to a higher pres-
sure than tank 210b, so that propellant
would be preferentially drawn from propel-
lant tank 210a during firing of thruster
24, thereby shifting center of mass 220 to
the right, toward thrust axis 26.
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