The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 12, 1997
Filed:
Jul. 03, 1995
David J Wirthman, Mountain View, CA (US);
John S Higham, Mountain View, CA (US);
Michel B Baylocq, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Peter Y Chu, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Space Systems Loral, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A low cost, fuel efficient solution to the problem of avoiding high yaw errors in communications satellites after station keeping maneuvers is achieved by adding a selectable function to the LTMM controller which allows it to calculate roll momentum based on measured yaw attitude error data from the yaw DIRA. The so calculated roll momentum is used to trigger roll unloads, which will reduce the yaw attitude error. This solution has the advantages that: it maintains yaw attitude error within the pointing budget; the fuel penalty is negligible; it can be made fully automatic; it can be disabled and not used; and, it requires only a very small addition to the firmware.