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Among the various challenges involved in the development of CubeSats lies the attitude determination and control of the satellite. The importance of a properly functioning attitude determination and control system (ADCS) on any satellite is vital to the satisfaction of its mission objectives. Due to this importance, three-axis attitude control simulators are commonly used to test and validate spacecraft attitude control systems before flight. However, these systems are generally too large to successfully test the attitude control systems on-board CubeSat-class satellites. Due to their low cost and rapid development time, CubeSats have become an increasingly popular platform used in the study of space science and engineering research. As an increasing number of universities and industries take part in this new approach to small-satellite development, the demand to properly test, verify, and validate their attitude control systems will continue to increase. An approach to CubeSat attitude determination and control simulation is in development at the Virginia Tech Space Systems Simulation Laboratory. The final test setup will consist of an air bearing platform placed inside a square Helmholtz cage. The Helmholtz cage will provide an adjustable magnetic field to simulate that of a low earth orbit (LEO), and the spherical air bearing will simulate the frictionless environment of space. In conjunction, the two simulators will provide an inexpensive and adjustable system for testing any current, and future, CubeSat ADCS prior to flight. Using commercial off the shelf (COTS) components, the Virginia Tech CubeSat Attitude Control Simulator (CSACS), which is a low cost, lightweight air bearing testing platform, will be coupled with a 1.5-m-long square Helmholtz cage design in order to provide a simulated LEO environment for CubeSat ADCS validation. / Master of Science / The attitude determination and control subsystem is a vital component of a spacecraft. This subsystem provides the pointing accuracy and stabilization which allows a spacecraft to successfully perform its mission objectives. The cost and size of spacecraft are dependent on their specific applications; where some may fit in the palm of your hand, others may be the size of a school bus. However, no matter the size, all spacecraft contain some form of onboard attitude determination and control. This leads us to the introduction of a miniaturized class of spacecraft known as CubeSats. Their modular 10×10×10 cm cube structural design allows for both low cost and rapid development time, making CubeSats widely used for space science and engineering research in university settings. While CubeSats provide a low cost alternative to perform local, real-time measurements in orbit, it is still very important to validate the attitude determination and control subsystem before flight to minimize any risk of failure in orbit. Thus, the contents of this thesis will focus on the development, design, and testing of two separate spacecraft attitude determination and control simulation systems used to create an on-orbit environment in a laboratory setting in order to properly validate university-built CubeSats prior to flight.

Small satellites are gaining popularity in a wide range of applications where attitude systems require high precision performance. One of the main sources of errors, in case of magnetic attitude control systems, is the residual magnetic moment (RMM) of the spacecraft. To keep the RMM low and stable, mitigation methods shall be applied based on the satellite’s magnetic dipole moment (MDM) characterization, which shall be measured accurately. For small satellites, the most common technique involves the generation of a field-free region for the magnetic measurements using a test bed. The test bed measurement setup is normally mechanical, where measurements from the device under test (DUT) are very tedious. Optical magnetic test beds (OMTB) are being developed for MDM characterization providing simpler set ups and faster measurements than mechanical test beds. In this work, accuracy of OMTB of Aalto University has been evaluated by measuring three permanent magnets in two configurations. The measurements show a relationship between the estimation accuracy and the DUT’s marker area seen by the camera. Moreover, it was observed that the field-free region generated by Helmholtz coil cage can generate false data points. Based on these observations, the detection of the marker’s positions have been evaluated using the view area (VA) and the pointing angle (PA). The analysis shows that there is a consistent pattern depending on the combination of the VA and PA. Hence, the method of data acquisition was improved in order to prioritize the markers which position allow better accuracy. The achieved improvement of MDM estimation results is 2 %, and the test bed’s overall error evaluated is a 13 % in MDM position estimation and 23 % in MDM magnitude estimation. The improved OMTB was used to characterize the MDM of four magnetic attitude coils of Foresail-1 satellite. The measurements results are consistent with design parameters, showing three dipole configuration in all coils with a MDM magnitude order of 10−2 A·m2. / Foresail-1