Spacecraft Momentum Control Systems

With space-industry professionals and university students, this book offers a practical technical reference for seeking to understand the state of the art in spacecraft momentum control systems. The focus is control moment gyroscope (CMG) technology, but general principles of momentum control—for example, through reaction wheels, magnetic torque actuation, and other means—are presented. These key topics are treated in several contexts: systems engineering and spacecraft architecture, attitude control and dynamics, and mission operations. The subject matter is developed with theoretical rigor and in terms of practical implementation in flight hardware software. This book is the first to address CMG technology in depth, let alone from a practitioner’s perspective. It is also timely, given the rise of commercial Earth imaging, the imminent need for high-torque manipulation of satellites for servicing and assembly, the advances in privately built spacecraft (including small satellites), and the growing popularity of the subject matter in academia over the past two decades. The current edition includes exercises suitable for upper-level undergraduate courses and graduate-level courses in spacecraft attitude dynamics and control, spacecraft design, and space systems engineering. This second edition provides more applications, attitude control, momentum and nutation dumping, isolation, system identification, systems engineering, bearings, and structures as well as more in depth discussions of equations of motion, as well as the numerics and complexity associated with generalized inverses that are used for steering algorithms.