Microsat Motion and Stabilization (and why we care about it)

摘要

Signals from the Microsats fade seem-ingly at random during apass. What's smore, the fades seem to be different on every pass. One likely reason is polarization changes caused by Faraday rotation of the signal as it passes through the ionosphere. Another is the motion of the spacecraft. A betterunderstanding of the motion and its potential effects on the signals from the spacecraft may be helpful in understanding how to design the most effective ground station antennas. Additionally, since the stabilization method used is nearly unique to the Microsats and is garnering some interest from the aerospace community, it may be of some scientific or engineering interest.