Four Methods of Attitude Determination for Spin-stabilized Spacecraft with Applications and Comparative Results

摘要

The attitude of a spacecraft is determined by specifying three independent parameters which relate the spacecraft axes to an inertial coordinate system. One convenient set of orientation parameters for spin-stabilized satellites consists of the spin rate, inertial spacerncoordinates of the spin axis, S, and another spacecraft vector, V;these parameters change with time and must be known at a particular time. On spacecraft for which the spin rate and V are measured directly by the onboard sensors, the attitude problem reduces to determining the spin axis, S.