ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

For future observation missions, the pointing requirement will become increasingly stringent and has prompted the development of a reaction wheel assembly with high torque and low induced disturbance characteristics. JAXA and Mitsubishi Precision Co., Ltd. commenced research and development of the reaction wheel assemblies in 2001 and successfully completed qualification tests in 2010 following the development of two general application reaction wheel assembly. The first flight model of this reaction wheel assembly will be launched on a Japanese observation satellite: the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2) in 2013 (scheduled). This paper describes the RWA specifications, an outline of the design feature and the qualification test results of the high-torque low-disturbance reaction wheel assembly.