COROT : AN AOCS POWERED BY MISSION TELESCOPE

PROTEUS development was initiated by CNES and ALCATEL at the end of 1996. The goal was to design and qualify a versatile small satellite bus, as well as a generic ground segment, able to accommodate various payloads for scientific or application missions. As it is an astronomical mission, COROT must comply with stringent constraints on its pointing accuracy, which are not compatible with the PROTEUS generic AOCS capabilities. In order to satisfy the mission needs, the generic PROTEUS Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS) has been customised in order to use the measures of the embarked telescope, in other words to include the payload into the control loop. In this paper, we present the design of COROT specific AOCS, and say some words about pointing performances assessment.