3 ms·
Simply turning around won’t put any long-term load on the reaction wheels though - you spin up to start reorient the satellite and then spin back down once you’
by Armisael16 9y ago
Simply turning around won’t put any long-term load on the reaction wheels though - you spin up to start reorient the satellite and then spin back down once you’re in the desired orientation. It’d be slow - reaction wheels aren’t really designed for gross maneuvers like this - but this is hardly an urgent situation.
- naikrovek 9y agoIt's the spin up and spin down that actually make the orientation changes, though. You can't spin up infinitely, so once a reaction wheel is spinning as fast as it can, you can't accelerate it further, and you can't rotate the spacecraft in the opposite direction on that axis any longer. (I don't think reaction wheels are capable of gross orientation changes at all -- only very minor alignment corrections.)
- sigstoat 9y ago> It's the spin up and spin down that actually make the orientation changes, though. You can't spin up infinitely, so once a reaction wheel is spinning as fast as it can, you can't accelerate it further, and you can't rotate the spacecraft in the opposite direction on that axis any longer. precisely. angular momentum. > I don't think reaction wheels are capable of gross orientation changes at all -- only very minor alignment corrections. nah. as an example, SORCE has nothing but wheels and a torquer bar (or two?), and aims all over the sky.