A cage to help our bird fly

Over the past several months students working on RECONSO have worked to gather to assemble a large Helmholtz cage. In the context of small spacecraft, Helmholz cages allow us to simulate the magnetic field encountered by satellites in Earth orbit, letting us test our magnetometers (when mounted within the satellite structure). With an air-bearing system, we can also test full closed-loop attitude control.

The apparatus has a test section exceeding 0.5m on a side, allowing us to place the entirety of RECONSOwithin. The coils themselves have diameters of about 1.5m each, and each axis (set of coils) is independently modulated with separate power supplies.