Earth’s Magnetic Field for Spacecraft Attitude Control Applications (TECHNICAL NOTE)

Abstract

In this paper the earth’s magnetic field is simulated precisely while the intensity and direction of the field are verified with one of the standard references for selected points on the earth and the results are compared with some low-order models. In another simulation, the complete model is compared with a common approximate model. The magnetic field in orbital frame is described and to employ earth’s magnetic field in spacecraft attitude control applications, it is transferred into the spacecraft body frame. Transformation between orbital frame and body frame can be linear or nonlinear; the validity of linear transformation is investigated regarding various attitude angles. The divergence plots and the plot and table of error percentage illustrate the result based on the defined acceptable error.