Modular Sun Sensor System for Orbital Attitude Determination
Open Access
- Author:
- Virk, Ravender Singh
- Area of Honors:
- Electrical Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Sven G Bilén, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Timothy Joseph Kane, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- sun
sensor
solar
tracker
circuit
satellite
CubeSat
SSPL
OSIRIS
attitude
orbit
TRIAD - Abstract:
- Satellites launched into orbit often require a subsystem to determine the attitude of the satellite for use with communication with a ground station, calculating the spin speed of the system, timing experiments, orbital calculations, and other uses that depend on the orientation and position of the satellite. One version of this subsystem is a set of sun sensors that use the location of the Sun with respect to the satellite to determine attitude. Sun sensor systems are used extensively on a class of satellites known as CubeSats. These smaller satellites, often used in academia, follow a standard developed by California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University that greatly increases accessibility to orbital experimentation. This project was to develop a fully-working set of sun sensors for the OSIRIS CubeSat being developed at The Pennsylvania State University. Once in orbit, OSIRIS will measure space weather in the ionosphere when stimulated by high-energy ground-based radio transmitters to simulate natural phenomena characteristic of the region. The OSIRIS sun sensors are needed to measure the attitude of the satellite and its science instruments when it is inside one of the stimulated regions and taking measurements. Though these sun sensors were designed specifically for OSIRIS, the circuit can easily be adopted for use aboard another CubeSat looking for a low-cost, high-performance subsystem for attitude determination. The design cycle of this effort started with developing a theory of operation, running simulations, building and testing a prototype, and finishing with a final, modular, near flight-ready sensor. All design work was done with Altium Designer and all software for the sun sensors was written in C++. The resultant sensors successfully passed accuracy, precision, linearity, speed, power, and environmental tests and now stand as a viable solution for CubeSats to use for attitude determination or to derive customized versions of the sensor for their own needs.