Chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft and its control

This paper deals with chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft with internal damping in a circular orbit near the equatorial plane of the earth. The dynamical model of the problem is established. The Melnikov analysis is carried out to prove the existence of a complicated non-wandering Cantor set. The dynamical behaviors are numerically investigated by means of time history, Poincare map, power spectrum and Lyapunov exponents. Numerical simulations indicate that the onset of chaos is characterized by the intermittency as the increase of the torque of the magnetic forces and decrease of the damping, The input-output feedback linearization method is applied to control chaotic attitude motions to the given fixed point and per iodic motion. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.