Guidance, Navigation, and Control of a Low-Altitude Nanosatellite equipped with Air-breathing Electric Propulsion

In recent years, near-Earth space utilization has seen the emergence of air-breathing electric propulsion as an enabling technology for long-duration missions conducted at very low altitudes. This work investigates the guidance, navigation, and control of a 6U CubeSat platform orbiting at altitudes below 300 km and equipped with an electrostatic air-breathing thruster. The analysis is conducted in MATLAB-Simulink and is based upon the coupling of its built-in orbital propagator with the NRLMSISE-00 atmospheric model, the recently developed ADBSat suite for computing the aerodynamic forces and torques acting on the platform, and a simplified performance model relating the propulsive performance to the inlet atmospheric properties, spacecraft attitude, and thruster operating parameters. A thrust control law, based on the feedback from the orbital elements estimated on-board and regulating the voltage applied to the screen electrode of a reference gridded airbreathing thruster, is implemented and verified