Control of Decommissioned Satellites and Space Debris Using CubeSats with Ion Electrospray Engines

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Contributors

Abstract

The emergence of the New Space era has led to a rapidly increasing number of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Consequently, more stringent deorbiting requirements have recently been imposed to avoid the Kessler syndrome in LEO. This has resulted in the proposal of new concepts for space debris removal, including attaching CubeSats to space debris as a promising mitigation strategy. The initial phase of this strategy involves stabilizing and controlling the debris’ attitude. This paper proposes an attitude control design for decommissioned satellites using attached CubeSats with staged ion electrospray engines (iESE). The compact design of iESE combined with staging provides increased reliability and mission durations. The large uncertainty in the dynamics of the combined system, i.e. satellite and attached CubeSats, poses a significant challenge to the control design. The approach taken here uses the robust control framework, specifically μ-synthesis, to tackle this challenge. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated on a decommissioned satellite with multiple flexile appendages.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAIAA SCITECH 2026 Forum
PublisherAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc. (AIAA)
ISBN (electronic)978-1-62410-765-8
Publication statusPublished - 8 Jan 2026
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-0016-9637/work/203068963
ORCID /0000-0001-6734-704X/work/203070183
Scopus 105030413590

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas