A system for determining an initial orbit of an object launched from an orbiting launch vehicle has a sensor affixed to the launch vehicle. The sensor transmits electromagnetic signals toward the launched object launched and receives signals reflected therefrom as reflected signals. A navigation subsystem determines a relative position of the sensor to the earth. A command and data handling subsystem receives the reflected signals and the determined relative position to the earth and determines a position of the object launched from the launch vehicle relative to earth.

The disclosure relates to a method and apparatus of rotating mass attitude control. The method and apparatus entails rotating a mass to generate thrust. Varying the speed and direction of rotation provides some control of the magnitude and direction of the thrust generated. The method and apparatus of the invention pertinent to an attitude control system for spacecrafts or astromotive vehicles under conditions of zero to low gravity and atmosphere.

A control system for a spacecraft for determining a resultant torque that is exerted upon a spacecraft by one or more magnetic torque rods is disclosed. The spacecraft is configured to revolve around a celestial body in an orbit. A magnetic field of the celestial body is predictable, and a direction of the magnetic field located around the orbit is fixed. The control system includes the one or more magnetic torque rods, one or more processors in electronic communication with the one or more magnetic torque rods, and a memory coupled to the one or more processors. The memory stores data into a database and program code that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the control system to instruct the one or more magnetic torque rods to exert the resultant torque upon the spacecraft.

A control system configured to execute a safing mode sequence for a spacecraft is disclosed. The control system includes one or more star trackers that each include a field of view to capture light from a plurality of space objects surrounding the celestial body. The control system also includes one or more actuators, one or more processors in electronic communication with the one or more actuators, and a memory coupled to the one or more processors. The memory stores data into a database and program code that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the control system to determine a current attitude of the spacecraft, and re-orient the spacecraft from a current attitude into a momentum neutral attitude.

In the system of the system of the present invention, the detection processing device detects whether there is any target orbiting craft; the acquisition processing device acquires a surface image of said solar panels after detecting the target orbiting craft; the shadow feature data processing device analyzes the acquired surface image of solar panels to detect whether there is any shadow feature data; the trigger processing device triggers starting power ensuring control for the environment control and life support system after detecting the shadow feature data; the matching processing device matches said shadow feature data with the above-mentioned preset shadow feature data cast by the target orbiting craft on said solar panels, and if they match each other, continue to power said experiment cabin to prevent data loss of the experiment cabin, which can effectively avoid unnecessary experimental data loss of the space station.

Methods and apparatus to methods and apparatus for performing propulsion operations using electric propulsion system are disclosed. An example launch vehicle includes a first space vehicle including a first core structure and a first electric propulsion system, and a second space vehicle including a second core structure and a second electric propulsion system, the second core structure releasably attached to the first space vehicle in a stacked configuration.

A method and apparatus for the control of the attitude of earth orbiting satellites and the orbit and attitude control of a novel gravitational wave detection satellite configuration located near the sun-earth Lagrangian points L3, L4 and L5, utilizing the control of solar radiation pressure by the use of electrically controllable variable reflection glass panels to provide the torques and forces needed.

A dipole cancellation system and method may include a plurality of magnetometers for measuring a device magnetic field associated with a plurality of device coils generating a device magnetic field having a primary magnetic dipole moment. A compensating coil carrying a compensating current running a first direction that generates a compensating magnetic field having a compensating magnetic dipole moment. The compensating coil may be positioned and the first current may be selected so that the compensating magnetic dipole moment completely cancels the primary magnetic dipole moment. A method may use the system to stabilize a spacecraft by calculating an estimated torque of the spacecraft, receiving a value for an external magnetic field, receiving a value for a device magnetic field, and calculating and applying a compensating current may be then applied to the compensating coil to cancel the primary magnetic dipole moment, wherein the spacecraft is stabilized.

A method for desaturating reaction wheels of a spacecraft having a magnetic dipole is provided. The method includes orienting the spacecraft relative to an external magnetic field to apply a torque to the spacecraft via the magnetic dipole in a direction opposing momentum stored in the reaction wheels; and using the applied torque to unload at least some of the momentum stored in the reaction wheels. A corresponding spacecraft and non-transitory computer-readable medium are also provided.

A menu-type design method based on optimized information fusion applied to a GEO satellite control system is provided, which includes: configuring four long-life inertial attitude sensor gyroscopes for a long-life GEO satellite control system; configuring sensors capable of measuring three-axis attitude according to a menu-type design requirement on hardware, where the long-life inertial attitude sensor gyroscopes and the sensors capable of measuring three-axis attitude are combined to form three types of Kalman filters; autonomously sorting, by the satellite-borne computer application software, the Kalman filters; and in a case where an FDIR module detects a fault, autonomously generating, by the FDIR module, an alarm corresponding to the fault, and autonomously performing, by a currently selected Kalman filter, reduced-order filtering, and in a case where the fault is not eliminated within a set time period, issuing, by the FDIR module, a macro instruction sequence to perform autonomous reorganization.