Nanosatellites have a limited volume and power budget which often precludes active attitude stabilisation, reducing the scope of realisable missions. The atmosphere at high altitudes provides a valuable resource for passive attitude control during orbital decay, by producing aerodynamic forces and torques on a spacecraft. Low data transmission rates mean that nanosatellite flight information is elusive, and simulation offers an attractive alternative. In the present work, a comprehensive and fast model for orbital-attitude dynamics is proposed. The simulation is applied to two real nanosatellite missions. The results show that passive aero-stabilisation can be achieved with and without aeroshell deployment, subject to dynamics of the atmosphere.
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