Single Antenna Attitude Determination for FedSat

Charles Wang, Rodney A. Walker and Werner Enderle

Abstract:	FedSat is the first satellite to be launched by Australia for 30 years. It is will be a scientific spacecraft with a number of experimental payloads. These payloads comprise of a single antenna GPS receiver, a 3-axis magnetometer, a Ka Band transponder and a reconfigurable computing payload. It will be launched by Nasda on a H2A rocket as a piggyback payload with ADEOS-2. The GPS receiver is a NASA JPL designed "BlackJack" receiver, which was provided to the CRCSS by NASA. The high-level objectives, for the GPS receiver on the FedSat mission, are to provide an orbit determination capability and an attitude determination capability, whilst operating within strict power budget requirements. The current baseline is a total of 20 minutes of operation per 100 minute orbit. This paper presents the history of the attitude determination capability for FedSat, an outline of the antenna gain pattern tests performed for FedSat, a summary of results obtained to date, and recommendations for new approached to improve the performance of single antenna attitude determination systems.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2002) September 24 - 27, 2002 Oregon Convention Center Portland, OR
Pages:	134 - 144
Cite this article:	Wang, Charles, Walker, Rodney A., Enderle, Werner, "Single Antenna Attitude Determination for FedSat," Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2002), Portland, OR, September 2002, pp. 134-144.
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