EQUILIBRIUM AND LIAPUNOV STABILITY OF FLEXIBLE DAMPED GRAVITY ORIENTED SATELLITE.

The paper determines notrivial equilibrium (NTE) of an inertially coupled gravity stabilized damped flexible satellite. It shows that Rayleigh's quotient and method of test density function are useful for Liapunov stability analysis of NTE. However, associated Hessian matrices cannot be handled to generate stability plots over a range of parameters without facing a prohibitive amount of algebra and computational burden. Stability about trivial equilibrium (TE) via integral coordinate approach is analyzed. Design charts from the study reveal the difference between TE and NTE, and show the deterioration of stability due to flexibility.