Ford Aerospace & Communications Corporation

Space Systems/loral, LLC

Carl T Plescia

Tung Y Liu

Fatima Kazimi

Donald W Gamble

Lisa K White

Mahabaleshwar K Bhat

A 3-axis stabilized spacecraft has primary and secondary attitude control thruster strings, thrusters in each string exerting roll, pitch and yaw torques. The primary and secondary thruster strings are similar and exhibit paired thrusters oriented on opposite sides of an East/West axis passing through the spacecraft. A stationkeeping input energizes the North or South thrusters to cause a maneuver of the spacecraft along a North/South axis, the thrusters effecting a perturbation in the spacecraft's attitude. An attitude control system energizes at least a primary string thruster to counteract the attitude perturbation, the thruster being oriented so as also to cause a change in the spacecraft's East/West orbit velocity. A processor is responsive to the change in East/West orbit velocity reaching a deadband limit value to deactivate the primary string thruster and to activate the secondary string thruster which exhibits a similar torque effect on the spacecraft as the primary string thruster but is oriented so as to cause an oppositely directed change in the spacecraft's East/West orbit velocity. The spacecraft further includes a system for enabling all primary and secondary thrusters that exert a force in one direction (i.e. East or West) for attitude control during limit cycling and during the North or South stationkeeping maneuver. The like directed thrusters both provide attitude stabilization and cause a predetermined change in orbit velocity.

Spacecraft East/West orbit control during a North or South

Mechanical oscillations of a mechanism containing a stepper motor, such as a solar-array powered spacecraft, are reduced and minimized by the execution of step movements in pairs of steps, the period between steps being equal to one-half of the period of torsional oscillation of the mechanism. Each pair of steps is repeated at needed intervals to maintain desired continuous movement of the portion of elements to be moved, such as the solar array of a spacecraft. In order to account for uncertainty as well as slow change in the period of torsional oscillation, a command unit may be provided for varying the interval between steps in a pair.

Solar array stepping to minimize array excitation

A closed loop system reduces pointing errors in one or more spacecraft instruments. Associated with each instrument is a electronics package (3) for commanding motion in that instrument and a pointing control system (5) for imparting motion in that instrument in response to a command (4) from the commanding package (3). Spacecraft motion compensation logic (25) compensates for instrument pointing errors caused by instrument-motion-induced spacecraft motion. Any finite number of instruments can be so compensated, by providing each pointing control system (5) and each commanding package (3), for the instruments desired to be compensated, with a link to the spacecraft motion compensation logic (25). The spacecraft motion compensation logic (25) is an electronic manifestation of the algebraic negative of a model of the dynamics of motion of the spacecraft. An example of a suitable model, and computer-simulated results, are presented.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Carl T Plescia