Effect of Environmental Torques on Short-term Attitude Prediction for a Rolling-wheel Spacecraft in a Sun-synchronous Orbit

Ward F. Hodge

ene 1971 · National Aeronautics and Space Administration ; [For sale for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, Springfield, Virginia 22151]

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A numerical evaluation and an analysis of the effects of environmental disturbance torques on the attitude of a hexagonal cylinder rolling wheel spacecraft were performed. The resulting perturbations caused by five such torques were found to be very small and exhibited linearity such that linearized equations of motion yielded accurate results over short periods and the separate perturbations contributed by each torque were additive in the sense of superposition. Linearity of the torque perturbations was not affected by moderate system design changes and persisted for torque-to-angular momentum ratios up to 100 times the nominal expected value. As these conditions include many possible applications, similar linear behavior might be anticipated for other rolling-wheel spacecraft.