The mission

The Attitude Determination and Control subsystem (ADCS) is the satellite subsystem responsible for controlling the orientation of a satellite in space. In the case of both aircraft and spacecraft, the term attitude refers to the orientation of the spacecraft in a given reference frame. ADCS systems are crucial to satellites for a number of different reasons. In the case of FINCH, the mission does have a point requirement of 0.6 degrees as of winter 2023 and knowledge of 0.002 degrees. The ADCS must maintain this attitude accurately, with high stability for a long enough period of time to facilitate clear images.

Requirements

Requirements

To achieve this, we need an ADCS system, fully test it, and be able to perform pointing while achieving our requirements.

What we have attempted/completed so far:

  1. Attempted to make our ADCS system. Decided too much time is invested and purchased off-the-shelf component.
  2. Purchased ADCS-10m (information below in documentation section) from TensorTech as our ADCS system, however the company did not disclose how their controller works, so it’s a black box. We do have access to their controller simulation, so they can do simulations for us.
  3. Attempted to make a digital twin for ADCS-10m. This project is now archived due to difficulty.
  4. Attempted to make a Helmholtz Cage, had electrical and mechanical design that were not justified.
  5. Created test plans for component and mode testing (with Helmholtz Cage).
  6. Created Assembly Integration and Testing (AIT) team and completed functional testing for sun sensors, control moment gyroscope, and MCB.

What needs to be completed:

  1. Functional testing for components in ADCS-10m.
  2. Mode testing with ADCS-10m (with Helmholtz Cage).