The Torque Rudder: A Novel Semi-Passive Actuator for Small Spacecraft Attitude Control
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This paper presents a novel concept for a semi-passive small spacecraft actuator. The proposed device consists of a set of solar cells that drive a small magnetic torquer automatically when illuminated. This device—referred to as a “torque rudder”, given its originally intended application in solar or drag sail missions—would be deployed or pre-positioned to automatically generate a magnetic disturbance torque proportional to its illumination. When the rudder is not illuminated, its residual magnetic moment would be zero, and the device would generate no torque. Thus, the proposed actuator has applications where sun-avoiding attitudes are desired in the absence of spacecraft commandability, and where permanent or bus-driven magnetic solutions are undesirable or unavailable. This paper describes the torque rudder concept, including a simple electrical and dynamic model for its use, with sample simulations derived from the CanX-7 drag sail deorbiting mission. A practical implementation is presented that enables sun-excluding modes for low-Earth orbit spacecraft with any LTAN. It is concluded that the torque rudder concept represents a novel, simple actuator when passive sun-pointing or sun-exclusion is desired, as may be the case for many small satellites.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".