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TSUBAME (satellite)
TSUBAME was a microsatellite developed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo University of Science from a student design concept in 2004. The satellite was designed to demonstrate new technologies for rapid attitude control, observing gamma ray bursts, and earth observation. The name, TSUBAME, means swift in Japanese and was chosen both because of the experimental attitude control system and to invoke another gamma ray observatory, the ''Swift'' Gamma-Ray Burst Mission, which launched shortly after TSUBAME's first design concept was published in 2004. TSUBAME was launched with four other satellites from Yasny Cosmodrome on a Dnepr rocket on November 6, 2014. It was placed in a 500 km altitude sun synchronous orbit. A week after the launch, problems were reported with communication hardware and communication was lost with the satellite after three months of recovery efforts. Objectives The TSUBAME mission included both engineering and scientific objectives. Primari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
S-band
The S band is a designation by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for a part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum covering frequencies from 2 to 4 gigahertz (GHz). Thus it crosses the conventional boundary between the UHF and SHF bands at 3.0 GHz. The S band is used by airport surveillance radar for air traffic control, weather radar, surface ship radar, and some communications satellites, especially those used by NASA to communicate with the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. The 10 cm radar short-band ranges roughly from 1.55 to 5.2 GHz. The S band also contains the 2.4–2.483 GHz ISM band, widely used for low power unlicensed microwave devices such as cordless phones, wireless headphones (Bluetooth), wireless networking (WiFi), garage door openers, keyless vehicle locks, baby monitors as well as for medical diathermy machines and microwave ovens (typically at 2.495 GHz). India's regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Field-programmable Gate Array
A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware description language (HDL), similar to that used for an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Circuit diagrams were previously used to specify the configuration, but this is increasingly rare due to the advent of electronic design automation tools. FPGAs contain an array of programmable logic blocks, and a hierarchy of reconfigurable interconnects allowing blocks to be wired together. Logic blocks can be configured to perform complex combinational functions, or act as simple logic gates like AND and XOR. In most FPGAs, logic blocks also include memory elements, which may be simple flip-flops or more complete blocks of memory. Many FPGAs can be reprogrammed to implement different logic functions, allowing flexible reconfigur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Tracker
A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a camera. As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may be used to determine the orientation (or attitude) of the spacecraft with respect to the stars. In order to do this, the star tracker must obtain an image of the stars, measure their apparent position in the reference frame of the spacecraft, and identify the stars so their position can be compared with their known absolute position from a star catalog. A star tracker may include a processor to identify stars by comparing the pattern of observed stars with the known pattern of stars in the sky. History In the 1950s and early 1960s, star trackers were an important part of early long-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, in the era when inertial navigation systems (INS) were not sufficiently accurate for intercontinental ranges. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MEMS Gyroscope
A vibrating structure gyroscope, defined by the IEEE as a Coriolis vibratory gyroscope (CVG), is a gyroscope that uses a vibrating structure to determine the rate of rotation. A vibrating structure gyroscope functions much like the halteres of flies (insects in the order Diptera). The underlying physical principle is that a vibrating object tends to continue vibrating in the same plane even if its support rotates. The Coriolis effect causes the object to exert a force on its support, and by measuring this force the rate of rotation can be determined. Vibrating structure gyroscopes are simpler and cheaper than conventional rotating gyroscopes of similar accuracy. Inexpensive vibrating structure gyroscopes manufactured with MEMS technology are widely used in smartphones, gaming devices, cameras and many other applications. Theory of operation Consider two proof masses vibrating in plane (as in the MEMS gyro) at frequency \omega_r. The Coriolis effect induces an acceleration o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetometer
A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, one that measures the direction of an ambient magnetic field, in this case, the Earth's magnetic field. Other magnetometers measure the magnetic dipole moment of a magnetic material such as a ferromagnet, for example by recording the effect of this magnetic dipole on the induced current in a coil. The first magnetometer capable of measuring the absolute magnetic intensity at a point in space was invented by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1833 and notable developments in the 19th century included the Hall effect, which is still widely used. Magnetometers are widely used for measuring the Earth's magnetic field, in geophysical surveys, to detect magnetic anomalies of various types, and to determine the dipole moment of magnetic materials. In an air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Sensor
A sun sensor is a navigational instrument used by spacecraft to detect the position of the sun. Sun sensors are used for attitude control, solar array pointing, gyro updating, and fail-safe recovery. In addition to spacecraft, sun sensors find use in ground-based weather stations and sun-tracking systems, and aerial vehicles including balloons and UAVs. Mechanism There are various types of sun sensors, which differ in their technology and performance characteristics. Sun presence sensors provide a binary output, indicating when the sun is within the sensor's field of view. Analog and digital sun sensors, in contrast, indicate the angle of the sun by continuous and discrete signal outputs, respectively. In typical sun sensors, a thin slit at the top of a rectangular chamber allows a line of light to fall on an array of photodetector cells at the bottom of the chamber. A voltage is induced in these cells, which is registered electronically. By orienting two sensors perpendicular to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetorquer
A magnetorquer or magnetic torquer (also known as a torque rod) is a satellite system for attitude control, detumbling, and stabilization built from electromagnetic coils. The magnetorquer creates a magnetic dipole that interfaces with an ambient magnetic field, usually Earth's, so that the counter-forces produced provide useful torque. Functional principle Magnetorquers are essentially sets of electromagnets laid out to yield a rotationally asymmetric (anisotropic) magnetic field over an extended area. That field is controlled by switching current flow through the coils on or off, usually under computerized feedback control. The magnets themselves are mechanically anchored to the craft, so that any magnetic force they exert on the surrounding magnetic field will lead to a magnetic reverse force and result in mechanical torque about the vessel's center of gravity. This makes it possible to freely pivot the craft around in a known local gradient of the magnetic field by only using ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gimbal
A gimbal is a pivoted support that permits rotation of an object about an axis. A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain independent of the rotation of its support (e.g. vertical in the first animation). For example, on a ship, the gyroscopes, shipboard compasses, stoves, and even drink holders typically use gimbals to keep them upright with respect to the horizon despite the ship's pitching and rolling. The gimbal suspension used for mounting compasses and the like is sometimes called a Cardan suspension after Italian mathematician and physicist Gerolamo Cardano (1501–1576) who described it in detail. However, Cardano did not invent the gimbal, nor did he claim to. The device has been known since antiquity, first described in the 3rd c. BC by Philo of Byzantium, although some modern authors support the view that it may not have a single identifiable inventor. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stepper Motor
A stepper motor, also known as step motor or stepping motor, is a brushless DC electric motor that divides a full rotation into a number of equal steps. The motor's position can be commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without any position sensor for feedback (an open-loop controller), as long as the motor is correctly sized to the application in respect to torque and speed. Switched reluctance motors are very large stepping motors with a reduced pole count, and generally are closed-loop commutated. Mechanism Brushed DC motors rotate continuously when DC voltage is applied to their terminals. The stepper motor is known for its property of converting a train of input pulses (typically square waves) into a precisely defined increment in the shaft’s rotational position. Each pulse rotates the shaft through a fixed angle. Stepper motors effectively have multiple "toothed" electromagnets arranged as a stator around a central rotor, a gear-shaped piece of iron. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synchronous Motor
A synchronous electric motor is an AC electric motor in which, at steady state, the rotation of the shaft is synchronized with the frequency of the supply current; the rotation period is exactly equal to an integral number of AC cycles. Synchronous motors contain multiphase AC electromagnets on the stator of the motor that create a magnetic field which rotates in time with the oscillations of the line current. The rotor with permanent magnets or electromagnets turns in step with the stator field at the same rate and as a result, provides the second synchronized rotating magnet field of any AC motor. A synchronous motor is termed ''doubly fed'' if it is supplied with independently excited multiphase AC electromagnets on both the rotor and stator. The synchronous motor and the induction motor are the most widely used types of AC motors. The difference between the two types is that the synchronous motor rotates at a rate locked to the line frequency since it does not rely on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon composite, or just carbon, are extremely strong and light fiber-reinforced plastics that contain carbon fibers. CFRPs can be expensive to produce, but are commonly used wherever high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness (rigidity) are required, such as aerospace, superstructures of ships, automotive, civil engineering, sports equipment, and an increasing number of consumer and technical applications. The binding polymer is often a thermosetting polymer, thermoset resin such as epoxy, but other thermoset or thermoplastic polymers, such as polyester, vinyl ester resin, vinyl ester, or nylon, are sometimes used. The properties of the final CFRP product can be affected by the type of additives introduced to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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