Attitude determination and control of the small satellite diva using the scientific instrument

Abstract

Small satellite missions for scientific purpose gained more and more importance during the last years in Germany. There are several missions in-orbit or scheduled for launch in the near future like GFZ (1995), Eguator-S (in-orbit, launch Dec 1997), ABRIXAS (launch April 1999) and other missions are on the horizon. One of these highly ambitious projects is the small astrometry satellite DIVA (German Interferometer for Multichannel Photometry and Astrometry). DIVA will be the successor of the HIPPARCOS satellite and a pathfinder to much larger missions like GAIA (Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics), FAME (Fizeau Astro-metric Mapping Explorer) and SIM (Space Interferometry Mission). This work deals with the recent results from spacecraft dynamics simulations performed for the 248% DIVA satellite. The attitude determination re-guirements are guite ambitious for a small satellite mission, while the control reguirements of barcmin are moderate. The attitude determination system has to provide attitude information to the scientific payload with an accuracy of larcsec in scan direction and Zarcsec perpendicular to it using a Kalman filter that relies on attitude sensors and the scientific telescope. The scientific goal is a post mission scientific attitude accuracy of about 0.8raas. The attitude control system relies on a cold gas system for first acguisition, safe mode and coarse attitude control. For fine attitude control field emission electric propulsion thrusters (FEEP's) are investigated.