Confirmation of gravitationally induced attitude drift of spinning satellite Ajisai with Graz high repetition rate SLR data

Abstract The high repetition rate Satellite Laser Ranging system Graz delivers the millimeter precision range measurements to the corner cube reflector panels of Ajisai. The analysis of 4599 passes measured from October 2003 until November 2014 reveals the secular precession and nutation of Ajisai spin axis due to the gravitational forces as predicted by Kubo (1987) with the periods of 35.6 years and 116.5 days respectively. The observed precession cone is oriented at RA = 88.9°, Dec = −88.85° (J2000) and has a radius of 1.08°. The radius of the nutation cone increases from 1.32° to 1.57° over the 11 years of the measurements. We also detect a draconitic wobbling of Ajisai orientation due to the ‘motion’ of the Sun about the satellite’s orbit. The observed spin period of Ajisai increases exponentially over the investigated time span according to the trend function: T  = 1.492277·exp(0.0148388· Y ) [s], where Y is in years since launch (1986.6133), RMS = 0.412 ms. The physical simulation model fitted to the observed spin parameters proves a very low interaction between Ajisai and the Earth’s magnetic field, what assures that the satellite’s angular momentum vector will remain in the vicinity of the south celestial pole for the coming decades. The developed empirical model of the spin axis orientation can improve the accuracy of the range determination between the ground SLR systems and the satellite’s center-of-mass ( Kucharski et al., 2015 ) and enable the accurate attitude prediction of Ajisai for the laser time-transfer experiments ( Kunimori et al., 1992 ).