2019 AIAA Astrodynamics Conference

Andrew Gatherer, a Masters student in the lab, presented on his work in underactuated-based magnetic torque coil (magnetorquer) control of small satellite attitude at the AIAA Astrodynamics Specialists Conference in Portland, ME in July. His brief talk focused on the development, application, and reliability of the algorithm for using trajectory optimization techniques to control the orientation of satellites with standard magnetorquers. His next steps will be implementing the algorithm through on-orbit hardware to validate the method in space! The conference paper is available through the RExLab website (https://roboticexplorationlab.org/publications.html).