Spacecraft detumbling

Spacecraft detumbling is the process of reducing or eliminating unwanted angular velocity (tumbling) of a spacecraft following launcher separation or an external perturbation. Detumbling is the first task to be performed by the spacecraft's attitude control system and it is therefore critical to ensure safe satellite operations, enabling reliable communication, solar power generation, navigation, and the subsequent nominal mission.

In order to minimize the risk of failure during this process, stringent requirements on the reliability of the involved actuators and sensors and on the simplicity of the adopted control algorithm are usually driving the design of the detumbling.

Spacecraft detumbling techniques can also be applied to the handling and removal of space debris.

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