Time Optimal Slew Maneuver of Magnetically Actuated LEO Satellites

Conventional magnetic attitude control methodologies require several orbital periods to accomplish the required attitude maneuvers due to the existence of an uncontrollable axis, namely the local Earth s magnetic field vector. Since in some attitude maneuver missions the elapsed time is of critical importance, those time-consuming controllers are not satisfactory, and we need a much faster controller to achieve the maneuver in a fraction of an orbit. In this research the attitude slew maneuver using magnetic torquers is formulated as a time optimal problem and solved through the calculus of variations. The resulting controller is shown to be very fast in forcing the attitude to converge to the desired condition.