Attitude control system design and on-orbit performance analysis of nano-satellite—“Tian Tuo 1”

Abstract “Tian Tuo 1” (TT-1) nano-satellite is the first single-board nano-satellite that was successfully launched in China. The main objective of TT-1 is technology demonstration and scientific measurements. The satellite carries out the significant exploration of single-board architecture feasibility validation, and it is tailored to the low-cost philosophy by adopting numerous commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components. The satellite is featured with three-axis stabilization control capability. A pitch bias momentum wheel and three magnetic coils are adopted as control actuators. The sun sensors, magnetometers and a three-axis gyro are employed as the measurement sensors. The quaternion estimator (QUEST) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) method are adopted for the nano-satellite attitude determination. On-orbit data received by ground station is conducted to analysis the performance of attitude determination and control system (ADCS). The results show that the design of ADCS for TT-1 is suitable, robust and feasible.

[1]  John L. Crassidis,et al.  Survey of nonlinear attitude estimation methods , 2007 .

[2]  Hao Wang,et al.  Attitude stabilization of a pico-satellite by momentum wheel and magnetic coils , 2009 .

[3]  Ricardo S. Sánchez Peña,et al.  Passive 3 axis attitude control of MSU-1 pico-satellite , 2005 .

[4]  Jian Guo,et al.  Survey of worldwide pico- and nanosatellite missions, distributions and subsystem technology , 2010 .

[5]  M. Yu. Ovchinnikov,et al.  Attitude dynamics of the first Russian nanosatellite TNS-0 , 2006 .

[6]  Hao Wang,et al.  Space Flight Validation of Design and Engineering of the ZDPS-1A Pico-satellite , 2012 .

[7]  G. Wahba.  A Least Squares Estimate of Satellite Attitude , 1965 .

[8]  Arpad L. Scholtz,et al.  TUGSAT-1/BRITE-AustriaThe first Austrian nanosatellite , 2006 .

[9]  Bernd Dachwald,et al.  Flight results of the COMPASS-1 picosatellite mission , 2009 .

[10]  Hao Wang,et al.  Design and on-orbit performance of the attitude determination and control system for the ZDPS-1A pico-satellite , 2012 .

[11]  James Cutler,et al.  The attitude determination system of the RAX satellite , 2012 .

[12]  Jeffrey K. Uhlmann,et al.  New extension of the Kalman filter to nonlinear systems , 1997, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[13]  Yang Fumin,et al.  Korea's first satellite for satellite laser ranging , 2005 .

[14]  M. Shuster,et al.  Three-axis attitude determination from vector observations , 1981 .

[15]  Byoung-Young Moon,et al.  Low-Cost Responsive Exploitation of Space by HAUSAT-2 Nano Satellite , 2006 .

[16]  Saburo Matunaga,et al.  Design of Tokyo Tech nano-satellite Cute-1.7+APD II and its operation , 2008 .