Reorientation maneuver for spinning spacecraft

A spacecraft spinning about its minor axis in the presence of energy dissipation is directionally unstable. Eventually, the spacecraft will reorient to a major axis spin. After the maneuver, the major axis spin rate can be either positive or negative. Correspondingly, the orientation of the spacecraft relative to the inertially fixed angular momentum vector is unpredictable. This paper demonstrates that the maneuver, when augmented with two thruster firings based on gyro measurements, provides a desired final orientation.