The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.

Joseph Shoer

Sungyung Lim

Leena Singh

Timothy Henderson

A conical scanning method and system is provided for orienting a spacecraft with respect to a source. The system includes a spacecraft and an incidence angle sensor secured to the spacecraft to sense a signal from a source. The incidence angle sensor has a boresight that is canted with respect to the principal axis. A processor communicates with actuators on the spacecraft to adjust an attitude of the spacecraft based on information received from the incidence angle sensor and to thereby align a principal axis of the spacecraft with a direction from the spacecraft to the source. The method and system can also rely on information received from source presence sensors. The source may be the Sun, or a non-solar signal source.

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Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Joseph Shoer