Attitude stability of artificial satellites subject to gravity gradient torque

The stability of the rotational motion of artificial satellites is analyzed considering perturbations due to the gravity gradient torque, using a canonical formulation, and Andoyer's variables to describe the rotational motion. The stability criteria employed requires the reduction of the Hamiltonian to a normal form around the stable equilibrium points. These points are determined through a numerical study of the Hamilton's equations of motion and linear study of their stability. Subsequently a canonical linear transformation is used to diagonalize the matrix associated to the linear part of the system resulting in a normalized quadratic Hamiltonian. A semi-analytic process of normalization based on Lie-Hori algorithm is applied to obtain the Hamiltonian normalized up to the fourth order. Lyapunov stability of the equilibrium point is performed using Kovalev and Savchenko's theorem. This semi-analytical approach was applied considering some data sets of hypothetical satellites, and only a few cases of stable motion were observed. This work can directly be useful for the satellite maintenance under the attitude stability requirements scenario.