Abstract
By basing on the statistical processing of onboard measurement data for the earth's magnetic field strength vector and the vector indicating a direction to the Sun the uncontrolled rotational motion of the Salyut-7 orbital station was investigated on long time intervals. It was shown that a few days after the beginning of uncontrolled motion with a small initial angular velocity the station was captured into a specific regime of the single-axis gravitational orientation where its longitudinal axis performed stable oscillations with respect to the local vertical with an amplitude of about 40°. An attempt was made to explain an appearance of such a regime by interaction between a destabilizing effect of the air drag and a stabilizing effect of energy dissipation by the station equipment. The results of calculation are presented to confirm this hypothesis for a test case.
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