Abstract
Spin stabilization offers a straightforward concept for spacecraft attitude stabilization. In the case of Earth-orbiting satellites, the determination of the spin-axis pointing direction is usually accomplished by using sun and Earth sensor measurements. For deep-space missions, however, useful Earth sensor measurements are not available. This paper presents a technique for the spin-axis attitude determination using only sun sensor data collected at two different instants of time. The spin-axis attitude corresponds to one of the intersections of the two available sun angle cones. The application of the method is validated with the help of actual in-flight sun sensor measurements from the comet nucleus tour satellite. The results indicate that the achievable attitude-determination accuracy is of the order of a degree after a number of hours. After less than two days, the error is below a tenth of a degree.
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