SUN-EARTH BASED SPIN AXIS DETERMINATION FOR INTERPLANETARY MISSIONS AND ITS APPLICATION TO IKAROS

摘要

This paper describes an attitude determination strategy for spinner spacecraft based on the Sun and the Earth angles. This method realizes a complete spin vector determination using only one sun sensor. Thus this method is suitable for low cost, resource-limited spacecraft with a moderate attitude determination accuracy requirement. The method has been developed for and is actually used in IKAROS, which is a Japanese interplanetary solar sail demonstration mission. This paper introduces theoretical backgrounds of Sun-Earth based attitude determination and shows how the actual implementation was done in the IKAROS mission. Then the attitude determination performance achieved during the actual operation is evaluated.