• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.46-56
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• 2002

In this paper, the feasibility of the attitude control of a spacecraft using pulsed plasma thrusters(PPTs) is studied. The PPT consumes less propellant mass requied for the orbit management or attitude control owing to its high specific impulse characteristics, compared with traditional gas propulsion system. The PPT is expected to be highly adequete for the missions requiring long-duration operations because it has relatively long operation time and easy implementation. The feasibility of the PPT for attitude control of a small satellite system is addressed through realistic missions. The classical PD controller and a fuzzy logic controller are tested, and fuel saving fuzzy logic controller is then proposed for more flexible mission performance.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.87-95
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• 2012

This technical paper describes the analysis results of telemetry data for the initial activation of star trackers for an agile high accuracy low earth orbit satellite. The satellite was recently launched and is in the Launch and Early Operation Phases. It uses two SED36 star trackers manufactured by SODERN. The star tracker is separated by three parts, an optical head, an electronics box, and a baffle with maintaining optical head base plate temperature 20 degC in order to achieve the better performance in low frequency error. This paper presents the initial activation status, requirements and performance, anomaly occurrence, and noise equivalent angle performance analysis during the mission mode by processing the telemetry data.

• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.97-101
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• 2012

The TC&R(Telemetry, Command & Ranging) antennas should have the hemispherical omni antenna patterns to make sure that the communication link between the satellite and the ground station can be established under whatever satellite attitude during after launch to on-orbit mission. The hemispherical omni-antennas are typically placed on the +z axis and -z axis of the satellite to provide the spherical omni patterns. The S-band qaudrifilar helix antennas having RHCP and LHCP hemispherical omni pattern are designed to meet the antenna gain and the axial ratio requirements. To investigate the omni-antenna pattern characteristics depending on four cases of antenna polarization combination placed on the +z axis and -z axis, the antenna pattern of each case is analyzed. Based on the result, after installing the designed RHCP and LHCP S-band omni-antennas on the +z axis and -z axis of the satellite, the combined antenna gain is obtained and finally analyzed in conjunction with the communication link influence.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.327-334
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• 2013

In August 2012 the first CanSat competition was hosted by the Satellite Research Center of KAIST under auspice of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. The present authors team won the first prize in the university session. In this paper the overall procedure of the CanSat project presented from the conceptual design stage to the final launch test. As the compulsory mission CanSat should send GPS data and attitude information to the ground station which in practice was performed via Bluetooth channel. In addition our CanSat is designed to trace the sun for the solar panels supplying electric power of satellite. IMU and servo motors are used for the attitude control in order that the solar sensor of the CanSat is always direct towards the sun. Launching of CanSat was simulated by dropping from a balloon at the height of around 150m via parachute. Launching test results showed that the attitude control of the CanSat and its solar sensing function were successful.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.914-923
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• 2009

Helix antennas have been widely applied to satellite TT&C, data communication and GPS receiver systems onboard military, remote sensing and communication purpose satellites. The helix antennas are known to be convenient to control impedance and radiation coverage characteristics with a maximum directivity in satellite z-axis. Waveguide horn is commonly used for radar system that needs ultra-wideband pulse for exploration ground radar and electromagnetic disability measurement etc. It has high efficiency and low reflection characteristics provided by the low-profile shape and suppressed radiation distortion. In this paper, a waveguide horn structure incorporated with helix antenna design is proposed for satellite applications that require ultra-wideband pulse radar and high rate RF data communication link to ground station over wide coverage area. The main design concern is to synthesize variable beam forming pattern based on modified horn-helix combination helicone structure such that multi-mission antenna is implemented applicable for TT&C, earth observation, high data rate transmission. Waveguide horn helps to reduce the overall antenna structure size by introduction fold type reflector connected to the tapered helix antenna. The next generation KOMPSAT satellite currently under development requires high-performance precision attitude control system. We present an initial design of a hybrid hern-helix antenna structure suitable for efficient RF communication module design of multi-purpose satellite systems.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.223-233
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• 2008

In the mid 90's, the U.S. government released images acquired by the first generation of photo reconnaissance satellite missions between 1960 and 1972. The Declassified Intelligent Satellite Photographs (DISP) from the Corona mission are of high quality with an astounding ground resolution of about 2 m. The KH-4A panoramic camera system employed a scan angle of $70^{\circ}$ that produces film strips with a dimension of $55\;mm\;{\times}\;757\;mm$. Since GPS/INS did not exist at the time of data acquisition, the exterior orientation must be established in the traditional way by using control information and the interior orientation of the camera. Detailed information about the camera is not available, however. For reconstructing points in object space from DISP imagery to an accuracy that is comparable to high resolution (a few meters), a precise camera model is essential. This paper is concerned with the derivation of a rigorous mathematical model for the KH-4A/B panoramic camera. The proposed model is compared with generic sensor models, such as affine transformation and rational functions. The paper concludes with experimental results concerning the precision of reconstructed points in object space. The rigorous mathematical panoramic camera model for the KH-4A camera system is based on extended collinearity equations assuming that the satellite trajectory during one scan is smooth and the attitude remains unchanged. As a result, the collinearity equations express the perspective center as a function of the scan time. With the known satellite velocity this will translate into a shift along-track. Therefore, the exterior orientation contains seven parameters to be estimated. The reconstruction of object points can now be performed with the exterior orientation parameters, either by intersecting bundle rays with a known surface or by using the stereoscopic KH-4A arrangement with fore and aft cameras mounted an angle of $30^{\circ}$.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1197-1199
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• 2003

ROCSAT-2 mission is to daily image over Taiwan and the surrounding area for disaster monitoring, land use, and ocean surveillance during the 5-year mission lifetime. The satellite will be launched in December 2003 into its mission orbit, which is selected as a 14 rev/day repetitive Sun-synchronous orbit descending over (120 deg E, 24 deg N) and 9:45 a.m. over the equator with the minimum eccentricity. National Space Program Office (NSPO) is developing a ROCSAT-2 Image Processing System (IPS), which aims to provide real-time high quality image data for ROCSAT-2 mission. A simulated ROCSAT-2 image, based on Level 1B QuickBird Data, is generated for IPS verification. The test image is comprised of one panchromatic data and four multispectral data. The qualification process consists of four procedures: (a) QuickBird image processing, (b) generation of simulated ROCSAT-2 image in Generic Raw Level Data (GERALD) format, (c) ROCSAT-2 image processing, and (d) geometric error analysis. QuickBird standard photogrammetric parameters of a camera that models the imaging and optical system is used to calculate the latitude and longitude of each line and sample. The backward (inverse model) approach is applied to find the relationship between geodetic coordinate system (latitude, longitude) and image coordinate system (line, sample). The bilinear resampling method is used to generate the test image. Ground control points are used to evaluate the error for data processing. The data processing contains various coordinate system transformations using attitude quaternion and orbit elements. Through the qualification test process, it is verified that the IPS is capable of handling high-resolution image data with the accuracy of Level 2 processing within 500 m.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.455-466
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• 2020

In this study, we built a thermal model for SNIPE 6U nano-satellite which has scientific mission for measuring science data in near Earth space environment and described thermal design based on the thermal model. And the validity of the thermal design was verified through the on-orbit thermal analysis. The thermal design was carried out mainly on the passive thermal control techniques such as surface finishes, insulators, and thermal conductors in consideration of the characteristics of the nano-satellite. However, the components with narrow operating temperature range and directly exposed to the orbital thermal environments, such as a battery and thrusters, are accomodated with heaters to satisfy the temperature requirements. On-orbit thermal analysis conditions are based on the basic orbital conditions of the satellite, and thermal analysis was performed for Normal mode, Launch & Early Orbit Phase (LEOP), Safehold mode, and Maneuver mode which are classified by the power consumption and the attitude of the satellite according to the mission scenario. The analysis results for each mode confirmed that every component satisfies the temperature requirement. In addition, the heater capacity and duty cycle of the battery and thruster were calculated through the analysis results of the Safehold mode.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.11
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• pp.934-943
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• 2018

In these days, demand for agile spacecraft is gradually increasing, due to the fact that agile spacecraft can improve mission capability. In this paper, an attitude control logic based on reaction wheels that can enhance agility of spacecraft is proposed. Three methods are suggested, and all three or part of them can be integrated to the existing attitude control system. First, a feedforward/feedback controller is introduced, and its pros and cons are provided, compared to the conventional feedback controller. Second, an attitude command generation method that fully utilizes torque/momentum capacities of reaction wheels is proposed. Third, a torque (current) control mode for internal wheel control is introduced. Numerical results verify that the settling time can be significantly reduced by employing the feedforward/feedback control method, especially for large angle maneuver.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.289-299
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• 2019

Attitude control modeling and simulation (M&S) can be extensively applied in overall development process, from simple algorithm design to on-board software verification. This paper introduces CMG-based attitude control M&S software, which consists of 6-DOF modeling (CMG and space environments modeling), and attitude control algorithm. The M&S software is divided into three modules, from an inner CMG motor control module to an outer earth observation mission module. While an application of this developed software is currently limited to the initial-phase attitude controller development, its application area can be extended to the later-phases by considering sophisticated model information in future.