• Current Industrial and Technological Trends in Aerospace
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.121-130
• /
• 2009

In this paper, the attitude and orbit control subsystem technology of new GEO communication and observation satellite using Sun sensors are introduced and analyzed. COMS is new GEO communication and Earth observation satellite based on EUROSTAR 3000 space bus technology. The attitude and orbit control subsystem of COMS adopts a configuration using three BASS and three LIASS Sun sensors to acquire the attitude error information in the specific reference frames. These Sun sensors are used to acquire Sun direction and to control the spacecraft to keep the relative attitude with respect to a reference Sun direction in both transfer and operational orbits. In this paper, the mathematical models of BASS and LIASS are described as well as their operational implementation in the flight software.