Design and validation of micro-vibration isolator for reaction wheels in consideration of launch environment of satellite

Abstract

Micro-vibration is an important factor that influences the imager orientation accu- racy and even deteriorates the quality of image of high-resolution satellite. To eliminate the influences of micro-vibration, a passive micro-vibration isolation method is proposed for reaction wheels (RWs) of satellite. At the same time, the launch environment is fully considered in the design of isolation system to guarantee the safety of both RWs. The isolation efficiency and orientation stability experiment results show that, without isolators, the peak value of the torque output reaches more than 10 Nm that is sharply depressed with isolation system operating mode. Without isolators, four clear peak values located at 10 Hz, 41 Hz, 47 Hz, 83 Hz are found in the orientation oscillation of RW. The random vibration experiments show that the maximal acceleration output 34.61 g is much lower than the RW design value 49 g which guarantees the safety of RW under harsh launch environment. The isolating efficiency is higher than 75% which is suitable for the requirement of the imager on-board the SDLT-1 satellite.