Flight Results of In-Orbit Advanced Attitude Control Experiment using Large Flexible Satellite ETS-VIII and JAXA's Future Mission

As described herein, we present an in-orbit attitude control experiment conducted on Engineering Test Satellite (ETS)-VIII in June 2009 and March 2010. This experiment is designed to develop a technical basis for the attitude control of a class of future large flexible spacecraft. Four novel robust control laws were developed and tested through the experiment: Direct Velocity and Displacement FeedBack (DVDFB) control law, Dynamic Displacement FeedBack (DDFB) control law, u-synthesis based control law, and linearly interpolated gain scheduling law. Experimental results of each control law are presented to demonstrate its high control performance compared with a conventional control law. Finally, we introduce some of JAXA’s large flexible satellite mission such as ASTRO-G (VLBI space observatory mission) and next-generation communications satellite.