Attitude Stabilization and Control of Dual-Spin Spacecraft

This invention relates to an attitude stabilizing system for adrodshaped satellite in which stabilization is achieved by use of a spinning ing energy dissipator. The system can operate by being mounted on the rotor of a dual spin satellite of by being connected to the main body of the satellite through a motor and bearing assembly. In the latter situation, the stabilizer acts both as a nutation damper and a momentum source and thereby eliminates the need for an additional rotor element to provide the spacecraft momentum. The spinning energy dissipator may be designed to use four identical al wheels mounted coaxially with and at the ends of the arms of a cruciform structure. The structure may then be spun about the axis perpendicular to the arms, to provide angular momentum along the spacecraft spin axis. In the event of any spacecraft nutation, n, the wheels experience the torques produced by inertial forces. The necessary damping and restoring (spring) torques are provided by means of a torsional arrangement built around the center of each wheel. In order to provide damping at lower threshold of spacecraft nutations, the dissipator wheels may also include viscous ring dampers mounted on or around each wheel.     

Active Nutation Damping Utilizing Spacecraft Mass Properties

Active nutation damping generally requires a unique element to provide the necessary damping torques, plus a nutation-sensing system to properly monitor and control the active element by closed-loop action. This paper describes and analyzes, by computer- assisted mathematical techniques, a nutation damper for a dual-spin spacecraft which does not require an active ?element?. Damping is achieved through the inherent cross-axis torques generated by the spacecraft products of inertia and the existing motor controlling the relative spin rates of the two dynamic components comprising the spacecraft.     

The Use of a Spinning Dissipator for Attitude Stabilization of Earth-Orbiting Satellites

This paper considers a novel attitude stabilizing system which acts both as a passive nutation damper and a momentum source for an Earth-orbiting satellite. The system may be designed to use four identical wheels mounted coaxially with and at the ends of the arms of a cruciform structure. The structure may then be spun about the axis perpendicular to the arms to provide angular momentum along the spacecraft spin axis. The wheels experience torques produced by inertial forces. The necessary damping and restoring (spring) torques are provided by means of a torsional arrangement built around the center of each wheel. The performance characteristics of the proposed stabilizing unit are evaluated by considering spacecraft parameters used in one phase of development of the Communications Technology Satellite (CTS). The results obtained for a specific design of the stabilizer indicate that global stability of the desired attitude motion of the spacecraft can be guaranteed with associated damping time constant as low as one second.     

Singular formalism and admissible control of spacecraft with rotating flexible solar array

This paper is concerned with the attitude control of a three-axis-stabilized spacecraft which consists of a central rigid body and a flexible sun-tracking solar array driven by a solar array drive assembly. Based on the linearization of the dynamics of the spacecraft and the modal identi- ties about the flexible and rigid coupling matrices, the spacecraft attitude dynamics is reduced to a formally singular system with periodically varying parameters, which is quite different from a space- craft with fixed appendages. In the framework of the singular control theory, the regularity and impulse-freeness of the singular system is analyzed and then admissible attitude controllers are designed by Lyapunov＇s method. To improve the robustness against system uncertainties, an H∞ optimal control is designed by optimizing the H∞ norm of the system transfer function matrix. Comparative numerical experiments are performed to verify the theoretical results.     

The THEMIS ESA Plasma Instrument and In-flight Calibration

The THEMIS plasma instrument is designed to measure the ion and electron distribution functions over the energy range from a few eV up to 30 keV for electrons and 25 keV for ions. The instrument consists of a pair of “top hat” electrostatic analyzers with common 180°×6° fields-of-view that sweep out 4π steradians each 3 s spin period. Particles are detected by microchannel plate detectors and binned into six distributions whose energy, angle, and time resolution depend upon instrument mode. On-board moments are calculated, and processing includes corrections for spacecraft potential. This paper focuses on the ground and in-flight calibrations of the 10 sensors on five spacecraft. Cross-calibrations were facilitated by having all the plasma measurements available with the same resolution and format, along with spacecraft potential and magnetic field measurements in the same data set. Lessons learned from this effort should be useful for future multi-satellite missions.     

The Electron and ion Plasma Experiment for Fast

The ion and electron plasma experiment on the Fast Auroral Snapshot satellite (FAST) is designed to measure pitch-angle distributions of suprathermal auroral electrons and ions with high sensitivity, wide dynamic range, good energy and angular resolution, and exceptional time resolution. These measurements support the primary scientific goal of the FAST mission to understand the physical processes responsible for auroral particle acceleration and heating, and associated wave-particle interactions. The instrument includes a complement of 8 pairs of `Top Hat' electrostatic analyzer heads with microchannel plate (MCP) electron multipliers and discrete anodes to provide angle resolved measurements. The analyzers are packaged in four instrument stacks, each containing four analyzers. These four stacks are equally spaced around the spacecraft spin plane. Analyzers mounted on opposite sides of the spacecraft operate in pairs such that their individual 180° fields of view combine to give an unobstructed 360° field of view in the spin plane. The earth's magnetic field is within a few degrees of the spin plane during most auroral crossings, so the time resolution for pitch-angle distribution measurements is independent of the spacecraft spin period. Two analyzer pairs serve as electron and ion spectrometers that obtain distributions of 48 energies at 32 angles every 78 ms. Their standard energy ranges are 4 eV to 32 keV for electrons and 3 eV to 24 keV for ions. These sensors also have deflection plates that can track the magnetic field direction within 10° of the spin plane to resolve narrow, magnetic field-aligned beams of electrons and ions. The remaining six analyzer pairs collectively function as an electron spectrograph, resolving distributions with 16 contiguous pitch-angle bins and a selectable trade-off of energy and time resolution. Two examples of possible operating modes are a maximum time resolution mode with 16 angles and 6 energies every 1.63 ms, or a maximum energy resolution mode with 16 angles and 48 energies every 13 ms. The instrument electronics include mcp pulse amplifiers and counters, high voltage supplies, command/data interface circuits, and diagnostic test circuits. All data formatting, commanding, timing and operational control of the plasma analyzer instrument are managed by a central instrument data processing unit (IDPU), which controls all of the FAST science instruments. The IDPU creates slower data modes by averaging the high rate measurements collected on the spacecraft. A flexible combination of burst mode data and slower `survey' data are defined by IDPU software tables that can be revised by command uploads. Initial flight results demonstrate successful achievement of all measurement objectives.     

克服旋转飞行器螺旋运动的方法研究

旋转飞行器虽然具有内在稳定性，但在飞行过程中一些不确定因素会导致飞行器产生螺旋运动，而非理想的关于角动量矢量纯粹的旋转运动。结合旋转飞行器自身的特点，借鉴自旋卫生的被动章动阻尼的方法，提出了一种通过主动控制飞行器内部质量块的运动使得飞行器碑的惯量主轴发生偏移，惯量矩阵由原来的对称阵变为含有非零非对角元素的矩阵，从而改变飞行器的姿态角运动来克服螺旋运动的方法，这将有助于提高旋转飞行器的资态控制精度。以某型旋转飞行器为背景进行仿真研究，计算结果证实了该方法的有效性和可行性。     

Fault-tolerant control and vibration suppression of flexible spacecraft: An interconnected system approach

This paper considers a fault-tolerant control and vibration suppression problem of flexible spacecraft. The attitude dynamics is modeled by an interconnected system, in which the rigid part and the flexible part are coupled with each other. Such a model allows us to use the interconnected system approach to analyze the flexible spacecraft. Both distributed and decentralized observer-based fault-tolerant control schemes are developed, under which the closed-loop stability of flexible spacecraft can be ensured by using the cycle-small-gain theorem. Compared with the traditional method, this paper considers the faults occurred not only in the rigid parts, but also in the flexible parts. In addition, the application of the interconnected system approach simplifies the system model of flexible spacecraft, thereby the difficulty of theoretical analysis and engineering practice of fault-tolerant control of flexible spacecraft are greatly reduced. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed methods and the comparison of different fault-tolerant control approach.     

The Plasma Ion and Electron Instruments for the Genesis Mission

The Genesis Ion Monitor (GIM) and the Genesis Electron Monitor (GEM) provide 3-dimensional plasma measurements of the solar wind for the Genesis mission. These measurements are used onboard to determine the type of plasma that is flowing past the spacecraft and to configure the solar wind sample collection subsystems in real-time. Both GIM and GEM employ spherical-section electrostatic analyzers followed by channel electron multiplier (CEM) arrays for detection and angle and energy/charge analysis of incident ions and electrons. GIM is of a new design specific to Genesis mission requirements whereas the GEM sensor is an almost exact copy of the plasma electron sensors currently flying on the ACE and Ulysses spacecraft, albeit with new electronics and programming. Ions are detected at forty log-spaced energy levels between ∼ 1 eV and 14 keV by eight CEM detectors, while electrons with energies between ∼ 1 eV and 1.4 keV are measured at twenty log-spaced energy levels using seven CEMs. The spin of the spacecraft is used to sweep the fan-shaped fields-of-view of both instruments across all areas of the sky of interest, with ion measurements being taken forty times per spin and samples of the electron population being taken twenty four times per spin. Complete ion and electron energy spectra are measured every ∼ 2.5 min (four spins of the spacecraft) with adequate energy and angular resolution to determine fully 3-dimensional ion and electron distribution functions. The GIM and GEM plasma measurements are principally used to enable the operational solar wind sample collection goals of the Genesis mission but they also provide a potentially very useful data set for studies of solar wind phenomena, especially if combined with other solar wind data sets from ACE, WIND, SOHO and Ulysses for multi-spacecraft investigations. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

大型航天器SGCMG系统基于模糊决策的操纵律设计研究

作为航天器制导、导航和控制系统的执行部件，单框架控制力矩陀螺是较为理想的大型航天器姿控系统的选择，但是单框架控制力矩陀螺系统（ＳＧＣＭＧ）存在严重的奇异现象，增加了操纵律的设计与开发的难度。本文对ＳＧＣＭＧ系统的奇异性进行了分析，利用模糊决策的思想确定了奇异测度，根据奇异测度梯度搜索法设计了基于模糊决策的ＳＧＣＭＧ系统操纵律。仿真试验表明该方法有效地保证了系统能够回避可避的奇异状态，为大型航天器操纵律设计提供了新的思路。     

利用变速控制力矩陀螺的航天器集成能量与姿态控制

 利用变速控制力矩陀螺(VSCMG)的航天器姿态与能量一体化控制问题。针对以VSCMG为姿态控制执行机构的刚体航天器设计了全局渐近稳定的姿态跟踪控制律。将VSCMG的框架角速度和转子角加速度作为控制输入向量设计操纵律。利用加权的最小范数解得到VSCMG的姿态控制输入向量，并用与之正交的控制输入向量来以给定的功率存储/释放能量。提出了同时表征力矩陀螺模式构型奇异和转子轮速平衡的混合指标函数。对控制自由度有冗余的系统，在混合指标函数的基础上利用梯度法构建了VSCMG的空转运动，以回避力矩陀螺模式的构型奇异，并同时减小转子转速差过大引起的转速饱和以及VSCMG零奇异的可能性。利用反馈转子动能的方法规划日照期间的储能功率，以维持系统长时间工作的能量平衡。基于某太阳同步轨道卫星的数值仿真结果验证了系统的有效性。     

An equivalent ground thermal test method for single-phase fluid loop space radiator

Thermal vacuum test is widely used for the ground validation of spacecraft thermal control system. However, the conduction and convection can be simulated in normal ground pressure environment completely. By the employment of pumped fluid loops’ thermal control technology on spacecraft, conduction and convection become the main heat transfer behavior between radiator and inside cabin. As long as the heat transfer behavior between radiator and outer space can be equivalently simulated in normal pressure, the thermal vacuum test can be substituted by the normal ground pressure thermal test. In this paper, an equivalent normal pressure thermal test method for the spacecraft single-phase fluid loop radiator is proposed. The heat radiation between radiator and outer space has been equivalently simulated by combination of a group of refrigerators and thermal electrical cooler(TEC) array. By adjusting the heat rejection of each device, the relationship between heat flux and surface temperature of the radiator can be maintained. To verify this method,a validating system has been built up and the experiments have been carried out. The results indicate that the proposed equivalent ground thermal test method can simulate the heat rejection performance of radiator correctly and the temperature error between in-orbit theory value and experiment result of the radiator is less than 0.5 C, except for the equipment startup period. This provides a potential method for the thermal test of space systems especially for extra-large spacecraft which employs single-phase fluid loop radiator as thermal control approach.     

Gaussian pigeon-inspired optimization approach to orbital spacecraft formation reconfiguration

With the rapid development of space technology, orbital spacecraft formation has received great attention from international and domestic academics and industry. Compared with a single monolithic, the orbital spacecraft formation system has many advantages. This paper presents an improved pigeon-inspired optimization(PIO) algorithm for solving the optimal formation reconfiguration problems of multiple orbital spacecraft. Considering that the uniform distribution random searching system in PIO has its own weakness, a modified PIO model adopting Gaussian strategy is presented and the detailed process is also given. Comparative experiments with basic PIO and particle swarm optimization(PSO) are conducted, and the results have verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed Gaussian PIO(GPIO) in solving orbital spacecraft formation reconfiguration problems.     

The electric field instrument on the polar satellite

The Polar satellite carries a system of four wire booms in the spacecraft spin plane and two rigid booms along the spin axis. Each of the booms has a spherical sensor at its tip along with nearby guard and stub surfaces whose potentials relative to that of their sphere are controlled by associated electronics. The potential differences between opposite sphere pairs are measured to yield the three components of the DC to >1 MHz electric field. Spheres can also be operated in a mode in which their collected current is measured to give information on the plasma density and its fluctuations. The scientific studies to be performed by this experiment as well as the mechanical and electrical properties of the detector system are described.     

Medium energy neutral atom (MENA) imager for the IMAGE mission

The Medium Energy Neutral Atom (MENA) imager was developed in response to the Imaging from the Magnetopause to the Aurora for Global Exploration (IMAGE) requirement to produce images of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) in the energy range from 1 to 30 keV. These images will be used to infer characteristics of magnetospheric ion distributions. The MENA imager is a slit camera that images incident ENAs in the polar angle (based on a conventional spherical coordinate system defined by the spacecraft spin axis) and utilizes the spacecraft spin to image in azimuth. The speed of incident ENAs is determined by measuring the time-of-flight (TOF) from the entrance aperture to the detector. A carbon foil in the entrance aperture yields secondary electrons, which are imaged using a position-sensitive Start detector segment. This provides both the one-dimensional (1D) position at which the ENA passed through the aperture and a Start time for the TOF system. Impact of the incident ENA on the 1D position-sensitive Stop detector segment provides both a Stop-timing signal and the location that the ENA impacts the detector. The ENA incident polar angle is derived from the measured Stop and Start positions. Species identification (H vs. O) is based on variation in secondary electron yield with mass for a fixed ENA speed. The MENA imager is designed to produce images with 8°×4° angular resolution over a field of view 140°×360°, over an energy range from 1 keV to 30 keV. Thus, the MENA imager is well suited to conduct measurements relevant to the Earth's ring current, plasma sheet, and (at times) magnetosheath and cusp.     

Coordinated attitude control for flexible spacecraft formation with actuator configuration misalignment

This paper investigates the coordinated attitude control problem for flexible spacecraft formation with the consideration of actuator configuration misalignment. First, an integral-type sliding mode adaptive control law is designed to compensate the effects of flexible mode, environmental disturbance and actuator installation deviation. The basic idea of the Integral-type Sliding Mode Control (ISMC) is to design a proper sliding manifold so that the sliding mode starts from the initial time instant, and thus the robustness of the system can be guaranteed from the beginning of the process and the reaching phase is eliminated. Then, considering the nominal system of spacecraft formation based on directed topology, an attitude cooperative control strategy is developed for the nominal system with or without communication delay. The proposed control law can guarantee that for each spacecraft in the spacecraft formation, the desired attitude objective can be achieved and the attitude synchronization can be maintained with other spacecraft in the formation. Finally, simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.     

Transient Performance of Gyro in Spinning Spacecraft

Transient performance of a single-axis rate gyroscope mounted in a spacecraft which is spinning about the spin axis of the gyro is presented. Analytical expressions for various time-domain and frequency-domain specifications as functions of the spin rate of the vehicle are obtained. Numerical results are presented which are useful in selecting the gyro parameters if it is to be used for the measurements of the angular velocity in spinning space vehicles.     

考虑输入饱和的航天器相对运动鲁棒自适应控制

 研究了在输入饱和约束条件下的航天器相对运动的姿态和轨道一体化控制问题。首先,基于单位对偶四元数给出了航天器6自由度相对运动的数学模型,利用误差对偶四元数来描述航天器的相对姿态和相对位置。接着,针对输入饱和问题,提出了一种对航天器模型参数不确定性和外部有界干扰具有较强鲁棒性的自适应控制器,并通过李雅普诺夫方法从理论上严格证明了整个闭环系统的全局渐近稳定性。最后,通过数值仿真来验证设计方法的有效性和可行性,并且与其他方法进行了比较,结果表明设计的方法能够抑制输入饱和的问题,在性能上具有更快的收敛速度和更强的鲁棒性。     

Three-Axes Attitude Determination of Spacecraft Using a Laser

A new method for attitude determination of spacecraft is proposed. The distinctive feature of this method is the ability to determine with high accuracy three elementary angles of the attitude by detection of the electromagnetic wave transmission from a single point. The system consists of a transmitter of a linearly polarized laser beam on the earth (or spacecraft) and receiving equipment on a relevant spacecraft. When the system is used for geosynchronous satellites, the possible accuracies of determination are 10-4 rad or higher for the angles which correspond to roll and pitch, and 10-2 rad or higher for the angle which corresponds to yaw, with the period of 1 s. The system margin for atmospheric attenuation is estimated to be about 50 dB (midnight) to about 20 dB (midday) on the basis of commercially available components. Consequently, it becomes possible to orient antennas or detectors toward arbitrary points around the laser transmitting point on the earth with a high pointing accuracy.