ESA Science & Technology: Service Module

Missions
Show All Missions

Mission Home
Summary
Fact Sheet
Objectives
Mission Team
Industrial Team
A History of Astrometry
The oldest sky maps
Seeing and measuring farther
Astrometry in space
From Hipparchus to Hipparcos: A sonification of stellar catalogues
Mission Science
Galactic Structure
Stars
Solar System
Asteroids
Exoplanets
Science highlights from Data Release 1
Scrutinising the Milky Way
From the Sun's neighbourhood to the distant Universe
Spacecraft
Overview
Payload Module
Service Module

Service Module

Attitude and Orbit Control

The AOCS subsystem is characterised by:

High precision 3-axis control
The ASTRO instrument is used for precise rate sensing during the fine pointing operational mode
A high precision gyro is used for quick and efficient transitions during the fine pointing operational mode
Rugged flight-proven initial acquisition and Safe modes
Three Sun acquisition sensors plus one gyroscope provide spin-axis stabilisation during the L2 transfer phase of the mission
One large field of view star sensor plus use of the main instrument sky mappers for the 3-axis controlled operational phase

< Previous article: Propulsion

Next article: Communications >

Last Update: 21 August 2012