A stellar inertial attitude reference with strapdown rate integrating gyros, together with star trackers and a general purpose computer, constitute the attitude control subsystem shared by NASA's HEAO observatories. HEAO-2, which is equipped with the largest and most precise grazing incidence X-ray mirror deployed aboard a satellite to date, has achieved accurate telescope pointing in autonomous maneuvering to selected targets, the acquisition of guide stars for attitude updating, and the positioning of unique experiments at the telescope focal point. Performance data have confirmed maneuvering accuracies of 1 arcmin, and pointing accuracies of 2-5 arcsec. Additional performance results presented support the extrapolation of the present HEAO attitude reference design to future applications.
HEAO project - Revisited
Control science and technology for the progress of society; Eighth Triennial World Congress ; 1981 ; Kyoto, Japan
1982-01-01
Miscellaneous
No indication
English
NTIS | 1979
|HEAO-C Observatory Description
NTRS | 1979
|HEAO attitude reference design
NTRS | 1978
|HEAO-A Observatory Description
NTIS | 1977
|NTRS | 1979
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