Measurements and Magnetic Cleanliness Assessment for Reaction Wheels on CubeSats

The fast growth in small satellite commercial-off-the-shelf technologies, that identify current and past periods of space industry, is exploited to design an 1U, 2U and 3U CubeSats able to provide a basic scientific return sufficient to improve quality of information and datasets for various human activities. The reaction wheel is currently the main technology for the attitude control. Normal operation of the reaction wheels unfortunately can cause various interferences on satellite's sensitive payload. After a short overview of the main components and their implications on the use of a reaction wheel, his paper provides a cleanliness assessment and magnetic measurements of a 4 set of reaction wheels targeted to CubeSat implementation.