Reaction Spheres for Attitude Control of Microsatellites

In past decades, small spacecraft have raised worldwide interest for their low cost and short development time. In general, three reaction wheels are needed for three-axis attitude control of general satellites. However, for small spacecraft where both volume and power budgets are limited, employing three wheels is a challenge. Therefore,...

Performance Analysis of Induction-Based Reaction Spheres

Induction-based reaction spheres have been presented in many references and their performances are normally investigated through experiments or numerical simulations which are time-consuming. Here, an analytical way is presented and it enables researchers to evaluate a new design quickly. In this article, the presented performance analysis is...

Analytical Field and Torque Analysis of a Reaction Sphere

In recent years, the increasing need in small satellite solutions triggers the miniaturization of attitude control systems. Reaction spheres were proposed as promising replacements of conventional reaction wheels for their 4π rotations. Since the generated control torques could be about any desired axes, a single reaction sphere is sufficient...