VECTRONIC Aerospace GmbH Communication • Navigation • Space Applications Air Bearing Unit VABU-12 The VABU-12 is an air bearing unit used to develop and test attitude control strategies for small satellites. The external ball structure and the base plate have been manufactured with an extremely high accuracy and offer a nearly friction free rotation around three axes while floating on a continuous airstream. This tool offers ACS engineers the perfect platform to verify and optimise their attitude control algorithms inside the own laboratory but nearly under real space conditions. The air bearing is able to carry more than 40 kg mass and the utilised equipment can be tailored to any different mission. The on-board computer is equipped with a Windows XP operating system. This allows software development with comfortable and familiar standard tools. The communication to the ground station computer is established via a W-LAN connection, which makes the air bearing accessible through remote desktop in the local network. VABU-12 Top View VABU-12 Interior View Description Number Quantity Item 1 3 Reaction Wheel; type: VRW-01 2 1 Magnetic Torquer; type: VMT-286 3 1 Magnetic Sensor; type: VMFS-51 4 3 Fibre Optic Gyro; type: µFors-6 5 4 Sun Sensor; type: VSS-1 6 1 Tilt Angle Sensor; type: CXTA02 7 1 Li-Ion Battery Pack VECTRONIC Aerospace GmbH Carl-Scheele-Str. 12 D-12489 Berlin VECTRONIC Aerospace GmbH reserves the right to change any part of this specification without notice Number Quantity Item 8 1 Control Computer (OBDH) 9 1 On/Off Switch with LED and fuse 10 4 USB – Port 11 1 D-SUB 15 pin VGA connector 12 1 Charge-Connector 13 3 Precision COG Adjustment Mass for each axis (X,Y,Z) 14 1 W-LAN antenna TEL FAX E-Mail Web +49(0)30 6789 4990 +49(0)30 6789 5230 [email protected] www.vectronic-aerospace.com