A generalization of Beletskij's concept of an optimally stable satellite and its liberation boundaries
- Paper ID
IAF-70-06
- author
- company
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Stuttgart
- country
Germany
- year
1970
- abstract
Beletskij [1] investigated whether it is possible to choose the moments of inertia of a satellite such that some uniform “moderateness” of roll, yaw, and pitch motions is guaranteed. In connection with the solution to this problem the concept of an “optimally stable” satellite is introduced. Beletskij solved the problem by taking into account inequalities derived from the first integral of the rotational motion of a satellite [2]. Related problems have been discussed by Likins and Wrout [3]. Their results are based on considerations aLo using the energy integral of motion. In contrast to refs. [1,3] the present paper starts from a general optimization problem for the librational motion of a satellite. 2