Abstracts Earth and Environmental Sciences

CubeSat attitude determination

by Anastasia Bondarenko

When satellites are placed in orbit, often times a specific orientation is required to achieve mission purposes. Different factors (such as atmospheric drag, magnetic fields, solar winds) or tumbling upon deployment from the launch vehicle, may result in an undesirable satellite orientation. To address these challenges, the ability to control the orientation, termed as attitude determination, becomes critical to any mission. This thesis will focus on developing an earth-pointing and sun-pointing mode in order to meet the objectives of the ESSENCE CubeSat. The earth-pointing mode orients the vehicle to point towards a desired target on the earth surface, and the sun-pointing mode orients the vehicle such that the maximum solar array surface area is exposed to the sun when the vehicle is out of eclipse.