In astronautics, spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc. Controlling vehicle attitude requires actuators to apply the torques needed to orient the vehicle to a desired attitude, and algorithms to command the actuators based on the current attitude and specification of a desired attitude. Before and during attitude control can be performed, spacecraft attitude determination must be performed, which requires sensors for absolute or relative measurement. The broader integrated field that studies the combination of sensors, actuators and algorithms is called guidance, navigation and control, which also involves non-attitude concepts, such as position determination and navigation. Spacecraft generally have an attitude determination and control system (ADCS), which includes both sensors and actuators. However, budget satellites (such as some cubesats), may elect for simpler attitude control systems (ACS) which use passive techniques, including the yo-yo de-spin technique and permanent magnets to control the attitude of the satellite.
Motivation A spacecraft's attitude must typically be stabilized and controlled for a variety of reasons. It is often needed so that the spacecraft high-gain antenna may be accurately pointed to Earth for communications, so that onboard experiments may accomplish precise pointing for accurate collection and subsequent interpretation of data, so that the heating and cooling effects of sunlight and shadow may be used intelligently for thermal control, and also for guidance: short propulsive maneuvers must be executed in the right direction. Many spacecraft have components that require articulation or pointing. Voyager and Galileo, for example, were designed with scan platforms for pointing optical instruments at their targets largely independently of spacecraft orientation. Many spacecraft, such as Mars orbiters, have solar panels that must track the Sun so they can provide electrical power to the spacecraft. Cassini's main engine nozzles were steerable. Knowing where to point a solar panel, or scan platform, or a nozzle — that is, how to articulate it — requires knowledge of the spacecraft's attitude. Because a single subsystem keeps track of the spacecraft's attitude, the Sun's location, and Earth's location, it can compute the proper direction to point the appendages. It logically falls to the same subsystem – the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem (AACS), then, to manage both attitude and articulation. The name AACS may even be carried over to a spacecraft even if it has no appendages to articulate.
Background
Attitude is part of the description of how an object is placed in the space it occupies. Attitude and position fully describe how an object is placed in space. For some applications (e.g., robotics, computer vision), it is customary to combine position and attitude together into a single description known as Pose. Attitude can be described using a variety of methods; however, the most common are Rotation matrices, Quaternions, and Euler angles. While Euler angles are oftentimes the most straightforward representation to visualize, they can cause problems for highly-maneuverable systems because of a phenomenon known as Gimbal lock. A rotation matrix, on the other hand, provides a full description of the attitude at the expense of requiring nine values instead of three. The use of a rotation matrix can lead to increased computational expense and they can be more difficult to work with. Quaternions offer a decent compromise in that they do not suffer from gimbal lock and only require four values to fully describe the attitude.
Control
Types of stabilization Attitude control of spacecraft is maintained using one of two principal approaches: spin stabilization and three-axis stabilization.
Spin stabilization
Spin stabilization is accomplished by setting the spacecraft spinning, using the gyroscopic action of the rotating spacecraft mass as the stabilizing mechanism. Propulsion system thrusters are fired only occasionally to make desired changes in spin rate, or in the spin-stabilized attitude. If desired, the spinning may be stopped through the use of thrusters or by yo-yo de-spin. The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 probes in the outer Solar System are examples of spin-stabilized spacecraft.
Three-axis stabilization Three-axis stabilization is an alternative method of spacecraft attitude control in which the spacecraft is held fixed in the desired orientation without any rotation.
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