Attitude and orbit control of a very large geostationary solar power satellite

Design of an attitude- and orbit-control system is presented for a 3.2 x 3.2 km geostationary solar-array platform with an area-to-mass ratio of 0.4 m(2)/kg. The proposed control-system architecture utilizes electric thrusters for integrated attitude and orbit eccentricity control by counteracting, simultaneously, attitude-disturbance torques and a large orbital perturbing force. Significant control-structure interaction, possible for such a very large flexible structure, is avoided by employing a low-bandwidth attitude-control system. However, a concept of persistent-disturbance accommodating control is utilized to provide precision attitude control in the presence of dynamic modeling uncertainties and persistent external disturbances.