Hard disk drive based cubesat attitude control

Miniaturized reaction wheels are manufactured by several companies, and can be found in multiple CubeSat missions. These reaction wheels have space heritage and good performance, but they are extremely costly. This paper examines the feasibility of using hard disk drive (HDD) components as reaction wheels for CubeSats. HDD-based reaction wheels are much more affordable and provide similar performance to commercial systems. Analysis and experiments are performed in order to validate the compatibility of the HDD-based wheel to the space environment. Numerical simulations using real satellite parameters show that the suggested concept is feasible. Experimental studies performed at the Distributed Space Systems Lab demonstrate that the proposed reaction wheel is capable of controlling the CubeSat rotational state to reasonable accuracy. Consequently, the HDD-based reaction wheel can significantly reduce the overall cost of CubeSats and thereby increase the accessibility of satellite missions.