Attitude recovery scheme of magnetically controlled satellite with constant thrust

When the constant thrust is acting directly on the bias momentum satellite, one component of the angular velocity vector would increment gradually to a larger one or even to infinite, which beyond the controllable region corresponding to B-dot algorithm. And in the following rate damping control process, the corresponding control effort would lead to attitude instability. In this study, under the constant thrust, the satellite's attitude evolution laws is researched and, under the control effort corresponding to B-dot damping algorithm, the satellite's tumbling mechanism is analyzed. Two critical angular velocities, respectively corresponding to the watershed value and the saddle point value, are determined according to the details of attitude control systems, including attitude control cycle and the corresponding time sequence. Theoretical analysis results show that, when the angular velocity is larger than the first critical angular velocity corresponding to the controllable region of B-dot algorithm, the B-dot damping algorithm would fail to de-tumble the satellite. On the contrary, the corresponding control effort would drive the angular velocity to another critical angular velocity, which is the saddle point for B-dot algorithm. Finally, a series of simulation examples are presented to verify the proposed conclusions. (C) 2019 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.