A Study on Active SAR Satellite Maneuver Time Reduction through Sequential Rotation

Abstract

Active SAR satellite's main maneuver is roll axis maneuver to change SAR antenna direction. In addition, yaw steering is required to minimize the doppler centroid variation. Thus, it is resonable to assign the torque/momentum capacity mostly to roll axis and then yaw axis. In this case, the pitch axis shows low agility performance. However, due to orbit maintenance, large angle maneuver about pitch axis is sometimes required. In this paper, we study the pitch axis maneuver time reduction through sequential rotation about roll and yaw axis. Since these two axes have high agility performance than pitch axis, maneuver time reduction is possible when large angle rotation about pitch axis is required.