Spin-Axis Attitude Determination from Earth Chord-Angle Variations for Geostationary Satellites

摘要

Spin stabilization offers a straightforward and robust concept for spacecraft attitude control. The spin-axisnattitude determination is usually accomplished by means of sun- and Earth-sensor measurements. This papernexplores techniques for spin-axis attitude determination using only Earth-sensor data. An immediate attitudendetermination can be achieved by straightforward geometrical arguments based on the extremes of the chord-anglenvariations over the orbit. Furthermore, an effective least-squares approach is presented that employs a number ofnequidistant chord-angle measurements collected during one orbital revolution. The adopted measurement model isnfavorable for reducing the adverse effects of systematic errors. Finally, a few explicit approaches are offered fornreconstructing the most important biases. The application of these techniques is illustrated by means of actualntelemetry data from the METEOSAT second-generation satellite MSG-2.