DEVELOPMENT, COMPLEX INVESTIGATION, LABORATORY AND FLIGHT TESTING OF THE MAGNETO-GYROSCOPIC ACS FOR THE MICROSATELLITE

摘要

The key-problems of design, examination, laboratory and flight testing of the attitude determination andcontrol system (ADCS) dedicated for a microsatellite are considered. The system consists of three pairs of thereaction wheels, three magnetorquers, set of Sun sensors, three-axis magnetometer and a control unit. ADCS, on onehand, is subjected to the high accuracy and reliability requirements, and, on the other hand, power consumption, totalmass and volume limitations. It is meant for the LEO satellite with mass between 10 and 50 kg. The problems aresolved within several steps, i.e. preliminary study of the satellite dynamics using asymptotical and numericaltechniques, hardware and software design, testing of each actuator and sensor and the whole ACS on the test-benchdedicated specially for such a laboratory simulation. Finally flight testing has been carried out to validate ADCSfunctioning.In this paper both dynamics of the microsatellite with ADCS and mock-up of ADCS operation are studied.Reaction wheels control law parameters are chosen to provide the maximum degree of stability. The evolution of thereaction wheels angular momentum is also studied and the problem of the desaturation with use of the magnetorquersis solved. Attitude accuracy is estimated in terms of closed-form formulae.Some aspects of in-flight ADCS exploitation onboard the Russian microsatellite "Chibis-M" developed,designed and fabricated by the Institute of Space Research of RAS and orbited from SC "Progress" on 25th ofJanuary, 2012 are presented. Flight showed a good correspondence between analytical, numerical and laboratorystudy with in-flight testing.