An Air Bearing Facility for Antenna Pointing Mechanism

Abstract

An air bearing facility is built to test the antenna pointing mechanism of track and data relay satellite. A hierarchical and simultaneous gravity unloading method is proposed to unload the gravity on the ground. The air bearing facility is a two layers structure. Planar air bearings and air spindle are used to unload the gravity of antenna pointing mechanism. An artificial load is designed to replace the antenna. Two joints of antenna pointing mechanism can rotate separately or together freely without the influence of gravity on the ground. The artificial load not only matches the mass, moment of inertial and basic frequency of the antenna, but also solves the coupling problem of moment of both axes. The air bearing facility is designed and established based on the proposed method and analysis. The effectiveness of this facility is proved with the simulation and the experiments and test results.