Ground attitude simulation light source technology

The solar sensor and the infrared earth sensor are important equipments for controlling the satellite's attitude; they must be tested in the ground before the satellite launch. The system includes one solar simulating light which's made up of four slits and two earth simulating lights which is simulated for an earth angle of 15.6 of earth synchronous orbit height. In this paper, the overall structure and the components of the ground attitude simulation lights were described. To design the system, infrared optical technique was used and the germanium collimating lens was designed, meanwhile the installation institutions of the ground attitude simulation light source was designed in order to connect the simulation light source to the real satellite safely for ensuring the requirements of the star products. The earth simulation light can simulate the earth chord width of 15.6 and the speed of the satellite is 10-120 rpm. The earth chord width and speed were tested through experiment, which show that the earth angle error is less than 0. 04 and speed phase-locked error is no more than 1 ms.