Determining the attitude motion of the Foton M-2 satellite on measurements of its angular rate and the strength of the Earth magnetic field using the kinematical model of the motion

The paper presents the results of reconstruction of the attitude motion of the Foton M-2 satellite. The reconstruction are based on processing the measurements of two vectors — the satellite angular rate and the strength of the Earth magnetic field. The processing technique uses kinematical equations of the attitude motion of a rigid body. In its framework, the measurement data of both types, collected on a time interval, are processed jointly. The angular rate data are smoothed by trigonometric polynomials and those polynomials are substituted in Poisson kinematical equations for elements of the transition matrix, which transforms the satellite coupled coordinate system to the orbital one. The equations obtained present the kinematical model of a satellite attitude motion. The solution of the equations, which approximates the real motion, is found by the least squares method from the condition of the best agreement between measurement and calculation data of the magnetic strength. The reconstruction were made for 7 time intervals, each interval having the length of 83 min.