Tae-Soo No, Sang-uk Lee and Sung-ju Kim
International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sicences, vol. 8, no. 2, pp.89-97, 2007

Abstract : COMS (Communication, Oceanography, and Meteorology Satellite) is the first Korean multi-purpose satellite which is planned to be deployed at the altitude of geosynchronous orbit above the Korean peninsular. Noting that COMS is composed of the main BUS structure, two deployable solar panels, one yoke, five reactions wheels, COMS is treated as a collection of 9 bodies and its nonlinear equations of motion are obtained using the multi-body dynamics approach. Also, a computer program is developed to analyze the COMS motion during the various mission phase. Quite often, the equations of motion have to be derived repeatedly to reflect the fact that the spacecraft dynamics change as its configuration, and therefore its degree of freedom varies. However, the equations of motion and simulation software presented in this paper are general enough to represent the COMS dynamics of various configurations with a minimum change in input files. There is no need to derive the equations of motion repeatedly. To show the capability of the simulation program, the spacecraft motion during the solar array partial and full deployment has been simulated and the results are summarized in this paper.

Keyword : Satellite attitude motion, Multi-body dynamics, Nonlinear Simulation, Solar array deployment