Session
Technical Session X: Advanced Technologies II
Abstract
One of the most important, yet complex, and expensive subsystems for virtually any spacecraft mission is the attitude determination and control subsystem (ADCS). Many payloads require precision ADCS to achieve the desired performance; however, such precision is typically cost-prohibitive for small spacecraft. To address this problem, Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has developed FlexCore, which is a highly-configurable ADCS that uses a core electronics box (based on the XACT cubesat ADCS), combined with any of the various reaction wheel sizes in the BCT product line. The FlexCore electronics and software stays the same, regardless of the spacecraft. The wide range of reaction wheel and torque rod sizes supports spacecraft sizes from large CubeSats to 100s of kilograms. The stellar-based attitude determination and control provides accuracy of 0.002-deg, RMS. Features of FlexCore include: multiple nano star trackers with integrated stray-light baffles; 3 or 4 low-jitter reaction wheels; 3 torque rods; GPS receiver; MEMS IMU; MEMS magnetometer; sun sensors; integrated processor and electronics; auto-generated flight software, including star identification, Kalman filter, momentum control, thruster control, and orbit propagation. The table-driven, auto-coded software is easily configured to support any mission, and is delivered to the user fully programmed.
FlexCore: Low-Cost Attitude Determination and Control Enabling High-Performance Small Spacecraft
One of the most important, yet complex, and expensive subsystems for virtually any spacecraft mission is the attitude determination and control subsystem (ADCS). Many payloads require precision ADCS to achieve the desired performance; however, such precision is typically cost-prohibitive for small spacecraft. To address this problem, Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has developed FlexCore, which is a highly-configurable ADCS that uses a core electronics box (based on the XACT cubesat ADCS), combined with any of the various reaction wheel sizes in the BCT product line. The FlexCore electronics and software stays the same, regardless of the spacecraft. The wide range of reaction wheel and torque rod sizes supports spacecraft sizes from large CubeSats to 100s of kilograms. The stellar-based attitude determination and control provides accuracy of 0.002-deg, RMS. Features of FlexCore include: multiple nano star trackers with integrated stray-light baffles; 3 or 4 low-jitter reaction wheels; 3 torque rods; GPS receiver; MEMS IMU; MEMS magnetometer; sun sensors; integrated processor and electronics; auto-generated flight software, including star identification, Kalman filter, momentum control, thruster control, and orbit propagation. The table-driven, auto-coded software is easily configured to support any mission, and is delivered to the user fully programmed.
