SAMPEX Spin Stabilized Mode

The Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX), the first of the Small Explorer series of spacecraft, was launched on July 3, 1992 into an 82' inclination orbit with an apogee of 670 km and a perigee of 520 km and a mission lifetime goal of 3 years. After more than 15 years of continuous operation, the reaction wheel began to fail on August 18,2007. With a set of three magnetic torquer bars being the only remaining attitude actuator, the SAMPEX recovery team decided to deviate from its original attitude control system design and put the spacecraft into a spin stabilized mode. The necessary operations had not been used for many years, which posed a challenge. However, on September 25, 2007, the spacecraft was successfully spun up to 1.0 rpm about its pitch axis, which points at the sun. This paper describes the diagnosis of the anomaly, the analysis of flight data, the simulation of the spacecraft dynamics, and the procedures used to recover the spacecraft to spin stabilized mode.