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Spacecraft attitude measurement based on samebeam interferometry

ZHANG Tiangang1,REN Tianpeng2,3,*,XIE Jianfeng2,3,LU Weitao2,3,YIN Feifei1   

  1. 1Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications,Beijing 100876,China
    2Beijing Aerospace Control Center,Beijing 100094, China
    3Science and Technology on Aerospace Flight Dynamics Laboratory,Beijing 100094, China
  • Received:2018-10-31 Revised:2018-11-27 Published:2019-04-25 Online:2019-03-19

Abstract: A samebeam interferometry based mathematical model of spacecraft attitude was established, and a solution method was proposed. The solvability of the model and the precision factor were analyzed. Numerical simulations of spacecraft attitude determination based on samebeam interferometry were carried out, where an onorbit spacecraft was simulated, and the relationship between calculation error and observation pitch angle were analyzed and verified. The results show that the effective spacecraft attitude can be obtained by using three ground stations to carry out the samebeam interferometry for three downlink antenna signals with a constraint of precision factor,and the highest accuracy achieved is 0.001° . The method proposed can be used as an attitude measurement backup for onorbit spacecraft.

Key words: spacecraft attitude, ground samebeam interferometry, attitude measurement, error analysis, observation pitch angle