The attitude determination system of the RAX satellite

The Radio Aurora Explorer (RAX) is a triple CubeSat that launched on November 19, 2010. RAX was designed to study plasma irregularities in the polar lower ionosphere (80–300 km), and is the first CubeSat mission funded by the United States National Science Foundation. The scientific mission requires attitude knowledge within 5° (1−σ1−σ), and a custom attitude determination subsystem was developed for the mission. The subsystem utilizes rate gyros, magnetometers, coarse sun sensors, and an extended Kalman filter, and was designed to be a simple, low cost solution to meet the attitude determination requirements. In this paper, we describe the design, implementation, and testing of the RAX attitude determination subsystem, including derivation of the determination requirements, sensor selection, the integrated hardware design, pre-flight sensor calibration, and attitude estimation algorithms. The paper is meant to serve as a resource for others in the small satellite and nanosatellite communities, as well as a critical reference for those analyzing RAX data. Lessons learned from the design and performance of the RAX determination subsystem will be used in future designs of attitude determination systems for small satellites and similar platforms, such as high altitude balloons and autonomous aerial vehicles.

► We describe the complete design of a CubeSat attitude determination subsystem. ► The subsystem was designed to be a low cost solution to the determination requirements. ► We utilize magnetometers, photodiodes, rate gyros, and a Kalman filter. ► We achieve better than 5° determination accuracy. ► This system has flown on the RAX nanosatellites.