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In this paper, a coordinated attitude control law for a tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) with mobile antennas is proposed. To track or point the target spacecraft with median/law orbit, the large mobile antennas have to move in a wide range, the movement of such mobile antennas disturbing the satellite attitude. Conventionally, the main body of the satellite and the mobile antennas are controlled independently. The proposed controller first estimates the TDRS's angular momentum which the mobile antennas will produce, based on the momentum conservation equation, then adds the estimated angular momentum as a feedforward signal to the conventional control law. The proposed controller is demonstrated using mathematical simulation, the results of which coincide well with analytical results.

On-orbit service technology is one of the key technologies of space manipulation activities such as spacecraft life extension, fault spacecraft capture, on-orbit debris removal and so on. It is known that the failure satellites, space debris and enemy spacecrafts in space are almost all non-cooperative targets. Relatively accurate pose estimation is critical to spatial operations, but also a recognized technical difficulty because of the undefined prior information of non-cooperative targets. With the rapid development of laser radar, the application of laser scanning equipment is increasing in the measurement of non-cooperative targets. It is necessary to research a new pose estimation method for non-cooperative targets based on 3D point cloud. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, a method based on the inherent characteristics of a spacecraft is proposed for estimating the pose (position and attitude) of the spatial non-cooperative target. First, we need to preprocess the obtained point cloud to reduce noise and improve the quality of data. Second, according to the features of the satellite, a recognition system used for non-cooperative measurement is designed. The components which are common in the configuration of satellite are chosen as the recognized object. Finally, based on the identified object, the ICP algorithm is used to calculate the pose between two frames of point cloud in different times to finish pose estimation.

The new method enhances the matching speed and improves the accuracy of pose estimation compared with traditional methods by reducing the number of matching points. The recognition of components on non-cooperative spacecraft directly contributes to the space docking, on-orbit capture and relative navigation.

Limited to the measurement distance of the laser radar, this paper considers the pose estimation for non-cooperative spacecraft in the close range.

The pose estimation method for non-cooperative spacecraft in this paper is mainly applied to close proximity space operations such as final rendezvous phase of spacecraft or ultra-close approaching phase of target capture. The system can recognize components needed to be capture and provide the relative pose of non-cooperative spacecraft. The method in this paper is more robust compared with the traditional single component recognition method and overall matching method when scanning of laser radar is not complete or the components are blocked.

This paper introduces a new pose estimation method for non-cooperative spacecraft based on point cloud. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively identify the features of non-cooperative targets and track their position and attitude. The method is robust to the noise and greatly improves the speed of pose estimation while guarantee the accuracy.

A decentralized dynamic neural network (DNN)-based fault detection (FD) system for the reaction wheels of satellites in a formation flying mission is proposed. The paper aims to discuss the above issue.

The highly nonlinear dynamics of each spacecraft in the formation is modeled by using DNNs. The DNNs are trained based on the extended back-propagation algorithm by using the set of input/output data that are collected from the 3-axis of the attitude control subsystem of each satellite. The parameters of the DNNs are adjusted to meet certain performance requirements and minimize the output estimation error.

The capability of the proposed methodology has been investigated under different faulty scenarios. The proposed approach is a decentralized FD strategy, implying that a fault occurrence in one of the spacecraft in the formation is detected by using both a local fault detector and fault detectors constructed specifically based on the neighboring spacecraft. It is shown that this method has the capability of detecting low severity actuator faults in the formation that could not have been detected by only a local fault detector.

The nonlinear dynamics of the formation flying of spacecraft are represented by multilayer DNNs, in which conventional static neurons are replaced by dynamic neurons. In our proposed methodology, a DNN is utilized in each axis of every satellite that is trained based on the absolute attitude measurements in the formation that may nevertheless be incapable of detecting low severity faults. The DNNs that are utilized for the formation level are trained based on the relative attitude measurements of a spacecraft and its neighboring spacecraft that are then shown to be capable of detecting even low severity faults, thereby demonstrating the advantages and benefits of our proposed solution.

Two high‐powered satellites built by Hughes Space and Communications Company (HSC) will bring true direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service to homes throughout North America starting in early 1994.

The purpose of this study is to address the concept and the step-by-step procedure of a high-precision optical alignment test for spacecrafts using digital theodolites. The proposed scheme focuses on the non-contact alignment qualification of spacecraft components during the integration and test phases until the launch event.

The proposed approach is based on the exploitation of the auto-collimation feature of theodolites and several prisms attached to the requested component and satellite configuration. As soon as the misalignment measurement including the difference between the real and desired attitude or position aberration of an instrument is made, the results must be transformed from the component level to the system level for misalignment error identification in the spacecraft dynamic model.

The paper introduces the main instruments, the defined coordinate systems and the architecture of the optical spacecraft misalignment test. Moreover, the guideline of the test implementation and the resulting data process have been presented carefully.

There is no limitation associated with this method because the procedure is applicable for high-precision typical missions.

This paper describes a fully implementable scheme to examine any possible inaccuracy in mounting of the spacecraft components both in position and orientation. The test can be performed without the need for a huge budget or complicated hardwares.

The contribution of this work revolves around illustrating the context and procedure of the spacecraft misalignment test which has remained unknown in literature despite the frequent implementation in the different satellite projects.

The paper aims to address the combined attitude control and Sun tracking problem in a flexible spacecraft in the presence of external and internal disturbances. The attitude stabilization of a flexible satellite is generally a challenging control problem, because of the facts that satellite kinematic and dynamic equations are inherently nonlinear, the rigid–flexible coupling dynamical effect, as well as the uncertainty that arises from the effect of actuator anomalies.

To deal with these issues in the combined attitude and Sun tracking system, a novel control scheme is proposed based on the adaptive fuzzy Jacobian approach. The augmented spacecraft model is then analyzed and the Lyapunov-based backstepping method is applied to develop a nonlinear three-axis attitude pointing control law and the adaptation law.

Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive control scheme in simultaneously tracking the desired attitude and the Sun.

Reaction wheels are commonly used in many spacecraft systems for the three-axis attitude control by delivering precise torques. If a reaction wheel suffers from an irreversible mechanical breakdown, then it is likely going to interrupt the mission, or even leading to a catastrophic loss. The pitch-axis mounted solar array drive assemblies (SADAs) can be exploited to anticipate such situation to generate a differential torque. As the solar panels are rotated by the SADAs to be orientated relative to the Sun, the pitch-axis wheel control torque demand can be compensated by the differential torque.

The proposed Jacobian control scheme is inspired by the knowledge of Jacobian matrix in the trajectory tracking of robotic manipulators.

The purpose of this paper is to detect the occurrence of anomaly and fault in a spacecraft, investigate various tendencies of telemetry parameters and evaluate the operation state of the spacecraft to monitor the health of the spacecraft.

This paper proposes a data-driven method (empirical mode decomposition-sample entropy-principal component analysis [EMD-SE-PCA]) for monitoring the health of the spacecraft, where EMD is used to decompose telemetry data and obtain the trend items, SE is utilised to calculate the sample entropies of trend items and extract the characteristic data and squared prediction error and statistic contribution rate are analysed using PCA to monitor the health of the spacecraft.

Experimental results indicate that the EMD-SE-PCA method could detect characteristic parameters that appear abnormally before the anomaly or fault occurring, could provide an abnormal early warning time before anomaly or fault appearing and summarise the contribution of each parameter more accurately than other fault detection methods.

The proposed EMD-SE-PCA method has high level of accuracy and efficiency. It can be used in monitoring the health of a spacecraft, detecting the anomaly and fault, avoiding them timely and efficiently. Also, the EMD-SE-PCA method could be further applied for monitoring the health of other equipment (e.g. attitude control and orbit control system) in spacecraft and satellites.

The paper provides a data-driven method EMD-SE-PCA to be applied in the field of practical health monitoring, which could discover the occurrence of anomaly or fault timely and efficiently and is very useful for spacecraft health diagnosis.