Pointing Modes

Pointing Modes determine the attitude of your satellite at each time step in your simulation.

Screenshot of satellite pointing to ground target in Playback Viewer

There are two types of Pointing Modes:

Direction Lock

In direction lock Pointing Modes, one of your satellite's Body Frame Vectors is locked to the selected direction.

Maximum Secondary Alignment

In max secondary alignment Pointing Modes, one of your satellite's Body Frame Vectors is locked to a direction, while a secondary vector maximizes its alignment with another direciton.

Directions

Directions can be environmental directions such as nadir and zenith, as well as Targets and Target Groups.

Target Group Pointing

If a Target Group is selected as the direction, then the satellite will point at the highest-priority Target in the group that satisfies all Conditions for the Pointining Mode to be engaged.

Spin Rate

If you assign a spin rate to your Pointing Mode, your satellite will rotate about the Body Frame Vectors when engaged in that Pointing Mode.

NOTE: The magnitude of your spin rate directly impacts the length of your simulation, as Sedaro Satellite adapts its simulation time step to capture the rotation of your satellite to reasonable high fidelity.