Patent ID: 7370833

Claim:
A control system of a spacecraft for controlling a set of collinear control moment gyroscopes CMGs, the control system comprising: an attitude control system operable to: receive a command to adjust an orientation of the spacecraft; determine a momentum needed from the set of collinear control moment gyroscopes (CMGs) to adjust the spacecraft; utilize a dynamic control that determines a momentum path and avoids singularities by rotating the singularities out of the momentum path; determine a safety ray that is initially at a fixed angle and all points along that angle in the momentum space is free of singularities; and rotate the safety ray to correspond to the momentum path, the singularity rotating away from the momentum path as the safety ray rotates; and a momentum actuator control processor coupled to the attitude control system, the momentum actuator control processor operable to calculate a required gimbal movement for each of the CMGs in the set of collinear CMGs from the momentum path.