Design and characterization of an Antenna Pointing Mechanism for on-orbit servicing missions

The goal of this work was to (1) define parameters to characterize a pointing mechanism, (2) design a setup to test these parameters and, (3) verify the test methods by comparing the results to the theoretically calculated or independently verified numbers. The verification of the test results was conducted with an in-house built Antenna Pointing Mechanism for on-orbit servicing applications. The test setup was developed to find a method to measure the behavior of a pointing mechanism. This was realized by mounting a Laser pointer on the antenna interface of the mechanism and pointing it towards a two-dimensional Position Sensitive Detector, providing means to resolve small motions, and to derive velocity and acceleration of the mechanism. The results show good correlation for characteristic parameters such as pointing velocity and acceleration, repeatability, resolution and pointing accuracy of the mechanism. In future work this test method will be qualified for and used to compare the performance of the mechanism at different environmental conditions such as vacuum, temperature and microgravity.