Uncontrolled rotational motion of the Aist small spacecraft prototype

Abstract

The results of reconstructing the uncontrolled rotational motion of the Aist small spacecraft prototype during its flight in early 2014 have been presented. The reconstruction was carried out by processing data from onboard measurements of the Earth’s magnetic field. The processing procedure used portions of data covering intervals of time with durations ranging from a few dozen minutes to three hours. Data obtained in each such interval were processed jointly by the least-squares method by integrating the equations of the satellite motion relative to the center of mass. The initial conditions of the motion and the parameters of the used mathematical model during processing have been estimated. The results of processing for several data intervals have provided a fairly complete picture of the satellite motion. This was the weakly disturbed Euler–Poinsot motion.