Attitude Stabilization of LISA Pathfinder Spacecraft Using Colloidal Micro-Newton Thrusters

Attitude and orbit control systems for the LISA Pathfinder mission

“…Thus new control strategy, the so-called 3-axis control where non-zero forces are allowed to act on the spacecraft during the denutation and de-spin submodes, is now taken as the new baseline, controllers are further tuned to be more tolerant for multiple failures. Detailed results are reported in the reference paper [6]. With the new control strategy and controller tuning, it has been proved that the FEEP thrusters can still stabilize and control the spacecraft with up to any 4 failures out of the 12 FEEP thrusters, while in some cases the performance will be down-graded, but still far better than the performances achievable with colloidal thrusters.…”

“…With the new control strategy and controller tuning, it has been proved that the FEEP thrusters can still stabilize and control the spacecraft with up to any 4 failures out of the 12 FEEP thrusters, while in some cases the performance will be down-graded, but still far better than the performances achievable with colloidal thrusters. The new control strategy and tunings are now put into engineering implementation [6].…”