Attitude determination and control system design for the CYGNSS microsatellite

Abstract

This paper presents the development of the attitude determination and control system design of the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System spacecraft. The CYGNSS constellation consists of eight small satellite observatories in 500 km circular orbits at an inclination of 35 deg released from a single launch platform. Each CYGNSS spacecraft will make frequent and accurate measurements of ocean surface winds throughout the life cycle of tropical storms and hurricanes with the objective to fundamentally improve gap-free coverage for hurricane forecast and monitoring. Realising this objective requires the spacecraft to accurately and reliably point its signal collection antennae in desired directions and hold its Earth relative attitude over long time durations to prescribed knowledge and point requirements. Indeed, the microsatellite ADCS regulates all spacecraft estimation and control functionality spanning detumbling; Sun acquisition and hold; pointing control and momentum-management over the micro-satellite lifetime to design requirements. This paper presents the ADCS hardware, software and algorithms used to control the spacecraft in all phases of CYGNSS operations and presents simulation based performance results of the closed-loop estimation and control systems.

Autonomous inspection of the international space station

“…Note that this algorithm is valid as long as 0 < e < 1, which holds for elliptical orbits. The six classical orbit parameters together with the true anomaly now allow the rotation matrix from the inertial to the orbit frame to be constructed as given in equation (8). Further, the radius vector to the satellite in the orbit frame is found as [1, p.26]…”

“…The problem of developing Attitude Determination and Control Systems (ADCS) has received much attention the last century with general books such as [1], [2], [3] and [4], as well as description of individual ADCS designs for different satellites in works such as [5], [6], [7] and [8]. This paper builds on much of the previous work, as well as the research done through the HiNCube project as presented in [9], [10] and [11].…”

A Hardware Implementation of Flexible Attitude Determination and Control System for Two-Axis-Stabilized CubeSat

“…CubeSats are considered extraordinary satellites innovation in astronautics field due to their light weight, short advancement cycle, low improvement cost, high functional density, and adaptable outflow attributes. These CubeSats are described as a class of nanosatellites ranging from 10 × 10 × 10 cm and upwards in 10 cm increments of length [1,2].…”

High‐precision attitude determination and control system design and real‐time verification for CubeSats

“…CubeSats are considered extraordinary satellites innovation in the astronautics field due to their light weight, short advancement cycle, low improvement cost, high functional density, and adaptable outflow attributes. These CubeSats are described as a class of nanosatellites ranging from 10 × 10 × 10 cm 3 and upwards in 10‐cm increments of length …”