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A small reaction wheel viewed in profile A momentum/reaction wheel comprising part of a high-accuracy Conical Earth Sensor to maintain a satellite's precise attitude. A reaction wheel (RW) is an electric motor attached to a flywheel, which, when its rotation speed is changed, causes a counter-rotation proportionately through conservation of angular momentum. [1]
Momentum wheels are generally suspended on magnetic bearings to avoid bearing friction and breakdown problems. [5] Spacecraft Reaction wheels often use mechanical ball bearings. To maintain orientation in three dimensional space a minimum of three reaction wheels must be used, [ 6 ] with additional units providing single failure protection.
As an example, suppose a spacecraft equipped with two or more dual-gimbal CMGs experiences a transient unwanted torque, perhaps caused by reaction from venting waste gas, tending to make it roll clockwise about its forward axis and thus increase its angular momentum along that axis.
Reaction control systems are capable of providing small amounts of thrust in any desired direction or combination of directions. An RCS is also capable of providing torque to allow control of rotation (roll, pitch, and yaw). [2] Reaction control systems often use combinations of large and small thrusters, to allow different levels of response.
There are also eight Monopropellant Rocket Engines (MRE-1), so called because they use only hydrazine as fuel. They are used for attitude control and momentum unloading of the reaction wheels. [2] [16] JWST has six reaction wheels for attitude control, spinning wheels that allow the orientation to be changed without using propellant to change ...
For example, maneuvers commonly conducted by the International Space Station to avoid collisions often require roughly 150 second burns [15] and significant disturbances to crew operations because of the mandatory slow reconfiguration of the station's solar panels to avoid damage by propulsion devices.
The speed is sometimes stabilised to prevent unwanted torque reaction. The internal friction losses are minimised by design. The momentum wheel(s) on a spacecraft is used in conjunction with reaction wheels. A set of momentum wheels 'translates' applied torque into a programmed direction. A momentum wheel can be configured as a CW or CCW unit.
A space vehicle's flight is determined by application of Newton's second law of motion: =, where F is the vector sum of all forces exerted on the vehicle, m is its current mass, and a is the acceleration vector, the instantaneous rate of change of velocity (v), which in turn is the instantaneous rate of change of displacement.