LOW COST CMG-BASED AOCS DESIGNS

摘要

MMS has been working on CMG based AOCS for over six years in the framework of R&D studies for French Agencies and ESA as well as through internal funding. We have followed a top-down analysis strategy so as to define the right product future missions, starting from a review of system needs in Earth observation and scientific missions to the preliminary mechanism design. We have performed these studies in a concurrent engineering approach between system engineers, control and mechanism design engineers with a view to defining low risk and cost effective solutions. We have developed innovative solutions, which simplify the system, the operations and the CMG mechanisms themselves. This paper will present the main outcomes of the studies, which have led to patented designs including: 1. The definition of satellite and CMG cluster guidance schemes to suppress singularities. The associated algorithms are simple and greatly simplify the mechanism and minimise its size. 2. An innovative architecture for the mechanism, which shows that a simple and cost effective implementation exists for small-size CMG. From these preliminary designs, bottom-up analyses based on prototyping are planned in order to consolidate performance budgets at mission level and to fine-tune specifications.