SPACECRAFT ATTITUDE CONTROL STRATEGY FOR REDUCING DISTURBANCE TORQUES

A control system for reducing disturbance torque of a spacecraft is disclosed. The spacecraft revolves around a celestial body surrounded by an atmosphere. The control system includes processors in electronic communication with one or more actuators and a memory. The memory stores data into a databa...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Lemke, Gary E, Mills, John Preston Charles, Lui, Timothy S, Wasson, Christopher James, Cantu, Cecilia G
Format Patent
LanguageEnglish
Published 03.12.2020
Subjects
AIRCRAFT
AVIATION
COSMONAUTICS
PERFORMING OPERATIONS
TRANSPORTING
VEHICLES OR EQUIPMENT THEREFOR
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Summary:A control system for reducing disturbance torque of a spacecraft is disclosed. The spacecraft revolves around a celestial body surrounded by an atmosphere. The control system includes processors in electronic communication with one or more actuators and a memory. The memory stores data into a database and program code that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the control system to instruct the spacecraft to enter a safing mode. In response to entering the safing mode, the control system instructs the one or more actuators to align a principal axis of the spacecraft with a vector that is normal to the orbit around the celestial body. The control system also instructs the actuators to rotate the spacecraft about the principal axis, where a rotational orientation of the spacecraft relative to the celestial body is shifted by about one-half a rotation about the principal axis.
Bibliography:Application Number: US201916425296