Flywheel energy storage for spacecraft

Flywheels can serve not only as attitude control devices, but also as energy storage devices, thereby eliminating the need for conventional batteries. Hence, a combined energy and attitude control system (CEACS) consisting of a double counter rotating flywheel assembly is proposed for small satellites in this paper. The energy level in CEACS depends mainly on the flywheels' speeds. Therefore, a specific flywheel energy management strategy has to be implemented to take into account the limitations of the flywheels, which has not been established until today.