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CEAS EuroGNC 2026

Thruster Pointing Mechanism Control for HENON Deep Space Transfer
Michele Olmo AOCS Engineer, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Giorgio Saita AOCS Engineer, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Nicolò Benigno AOCS Engineer, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Davide Calcagno System Engineer, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Alessandro Lovesio SW Engineer, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Alessandro Vitiello Mission Analyst, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Davide Monferrini Project Manager, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Luigi Guarino Project Manager, Argotec s.r.l, Turin, Italy.
Abstract:
This paper presents the Thruster Pointing Mechanism (TPM) control strategy developed by Argotec in the context of the ESA CubeSat mission HENON. The mission is led by Argotec and it is developed by a consortium composed by INAF, as principal investigator, University of Calabria, University of Florence, SPACEDYS, Imperial College, ASRO and IMT. An external contribution is provided by Charles University and Mars Space Limited for the payload suite and the Electrical Propulsion System. The mission aims at studying space weather phenomena and HENON will be the first CubeSat to reach a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) to achieve this goal. The spacecraft will perform a deep space transfer to the DRO by means of a gridded ion-thruster, providing low thrust and high specific impulse. The uncertainties on the knowledge of the Center of Mass (CoM) position required a gimbal to orient the thrust along the CoM direction, in order to avoid the generation of parasitic torques due to the propulsion system. However, the uncertainties on the thrust vector direction, due to the TPM accuracy and the electric thruster's grids misalignments, generate a residual parasitic torque on the spacecraft. This disturbance would negate the spacecraft the possibility to perform the deep space transfer, therefore a TPM control strategy is developed to exploit the gimbal to generate torques counteracting the residual parasitic momentum build-up. This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed strategy in reducing the parasitic angular momentum build-up and its easiness of adaption to scenarios involving different errors and control intervals.
Keywords: Thruster Pointing Mechanism; Angular Momentum Management; Residual Parasitic Torque; Electric Propulsion; Deep Space
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2026-066 doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-066


Michele Olmo, Giorgio Saita, Nicolò Benigno, Davide Calcagno, Alessandro Lovesio, Alessandro Vitiello, Davide Monferrini, Luigi Guarino: Thruster Pointing Mechanism Control for HENON Deep Space Transfer. Proceedings of the 2026 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Madrid, Spain. May 2026. doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-066.
BibTeX entry (UTF-8):

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2026-066,
    author = {Olmo, Michele and Saita, Giorgio and Benigno, Nicolò and Calcagno, Davide and Lovesio, Alessandro and Vitiello, Alessandro and Monferrini, Davide and Guarino, Luigi},
    title = {Thruster Pointing Mechanism Control for HENON Deep Space Transfer},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Madrid, Spain},
    month = may,
    year = {2026},
    doi = {10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-066}
}