ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

Nowadays, primarily conventional reaction wheels are used to control the attitude of spacecrafts. Nevertheless, some missions require the attitude control to be much more agile. Due to their functional principle Control Moment Gyroscope (CMG) based control systems provide a much higher agility and are thus getting more and more important. Astro- und Feinwerktechnik Adlershof GmbH (Astrofein) is currently developing a CMG for Small Satellites supported by ESA GSTP-6. To make CMGs available for smaller satellites, a trade-off between volume and mass as well as power consumption and performance had to be made. The current design ensures a high target performance of 8Nms/14Nm with a dedicated mass of 8kg and a maximum power consumption of about 40W. An Engineering Qualification Model (EQM) was built and is currently undergoing an environmental test campaign, that includes different tests such as the Thermal-Vacuum and Micro Vibration test. The specification and the current status of the CMG as well as an insight on the test results with regards to the performance of the CMG within the environmental tests will be given in this paper.