In a previous post I described an idea on how to triangulate on the orientation of the Brown Space Engineering (BSE) satellite EQUiSat using simultaneous observations from multiple SatNOGS ground stations. We’re running simulation software to model how the antenna beam might be changing orientation as the spacecraft spins. The gyroscope is reporting about 7 degrees per second around one axis. This seems very fast and we’re not sure if the readings are accurate. This initial modeling assumes they are correct.
In the figures below the antenna beam is shown by a torus surrounding the satellite. The pattern is projected to the ground as rainbow colored lines. The red lines are the center of the beam. This does not show how signal strength varies on the surface. We’ll get to that later. It is merely projecting the geometry of a dipole antenna to illustrate where the center of the beam could be and how it might be rotating as the spacecraft spins.
