GEMINI Stability Control for Reducing Pointing Jitter in CubeSats and Smallsats

Because of the cost-effectiveness of flying smallsats compared to large flagship spacecraft, there is increasing interest in boosting their capabilities for supporting precision science payloads and sophisticated instrumentation. Unfortunately, a major current drawback with using smallsats is their inability to hold the pointing line-of-sight steady without jittering. Line-of-sight jitter degrades observations made by cameras and other imaging-type instruments, and fundamentally limits the quality of science that can be obtained.