A magnetic control system for attitude acquisition

A spacecraft magnetic attitude acquisition system is reported that is capable of automatically despinning a satellite from arbitrarily high rates around any axis and provides terminal orientation that makes capture by conventional fine control attitude control systems routine. The system consists of a 3-axis magnetometer, a set of 3 orthogonal magnets, and appropriate control logic. A well-configured system results in despin times of the order of 5 orbits per rpm for spacecraft in low earth orbits. Following despin, terminal orientation is achieved after another one to three orbits, depending on the capture range of the associated fine control system.