Session
Technical Session VIII: Attitude Control Technologies
Abstract
The move towards miniaturizing satellites will not be based solely on scaling down with a commensurate reduction in capability. The real goal should be to maintain high functionality and ultimately to increase capability in a small, low cost package. Conventional remote imaging has been based on the design approach that to achieve high resolution images from space, the satellite designer is driven to large apertures, expensive and complex attitude and articulation control hardware, with large, heavy, and power intensive inertial sensors. Micro-class satellites when faced with precision pointing requirements have traditionally not used active control to improve pointing performance. This paper describes MicroSat, a three axis stabilized satellite design for precision pointing applications. The heart of the design is the optics and the pointing subsystems. MicroSat uses an integrated INS/GPS based attitude reference system with custom designed and fabricated reaction wheels for pointing control. Multiple units can be launched from a Pegasus class vehicle providing a once-per-day revisit of a designated area with one meter class resolution in the visible range. This paper describes the satellite concept design and the hardware ground test demonstration.
Small Satellite Design and Development for Precision Pointing Applications
The move towards miniaturizing satellites will not be based solely on scaling down with a commensurate reduction in capability. The real goal should be to maintain high functionality and ultimately to increase capability in a small, low cost package. Conventional remote imaging has been based on the design approach that to achieve high resolution images from space, the satellite designer is driven to large apertures, expensive and complex attitude and articulation control hardware, with large, heavy, and power intensive inertial sensors. Micro-class satellites when faced with precision pointing requirements have traditionally not used active control to improve pointing performance. This paper describes MicroSat, a three axis stabilized satellite design for precision pointing applications. The heart of the design is the optics and the pointing subsystems. MicroSat uses an integrated INS/GPS based attitude reference system with custom designed and fabricated reaction wheels for pointing control. Multiple units can be launched from a Pegasus class vehicle providing a once-per-day revisit of a designated area with one meter class resolution in the visible range. This paper describes the satellite concept design and the hardware ground test demonstration.
