It is necessary to determine the mass properties of an on-orbit large-scale flexible spacecraft in order to achieve high-precision attitude control. The mass properties of the spacecraft include the inertia, the center of mass, and the mass. Research in this area had been mostly focused on rigid spacecrafts. The coupling between the rigid body of the spacecraft and the large flexible appendages on it, however, could have significant effect on the mass properties determination. This article proposes a momentum conservation–based determination method that takes into consideration the rigid–flexible coupling factors of large-scale flexible spacecrafts.

First, a control method is designed to ensure that the spacecraft stays motionless after the motivation incurred for mass properties determination. Second, an inertia matrix determination method is developed using a Kalman filter, in which the coupling factors are added in the amendment procedure. Third, the Kalman filter with input is applied in the determination of the center of mass: on the one hand, this method can use one the accelerometer placed at the flexible appendages, if the deformation can be measured; on the other side, the method can use three accelerometers placed at three orthogonal points of the rigid part of the spacecraft, when the deformation cannot be measured. Finally, the mass can be gained by estimating the center of mass twice. Simulations were carried out on a large-scale rigid–flexible coupling spacecraft. The results demonstrated that the determination errors in all cases are less than 10%, which meet the engineering requirements.

为了实现高精度的姿态控制，有必要确定在轨大型柔性航天器的质量特性。航天器的质量特性包括惯性，质心和质量。该领域的研究主要集中在刚性航天器上。但是，航天器的刚体与其上的大型柔性附件之间的耦合可能会对质量特性的确定产生重大影响。本文提出了一种基于动量守恒的确定方法，该方法考虑了大型挠性航天器的刚柔耦合因素。

首先，设计一种控制方法，以确保在确定质量属性的动机之后，航天器保持静止。其次，使用卡尔曼滤波器开发了一种惯性矩阵确定方法，其中在修正程序中添加了耦合因子。第三，将带输入的卡尔曼滤波器应用于确定质心：一方面，如果可以测量变形，则该方法可以使用放置在柔性附件上的加速度计。另一方面，当无法测量变形时，该方法可以使用三个加速度计放置在航天器刚性部分的三个正交点处。最后，可以通过两次估计质心来获得质量。在大型的刚柔耦合航天器上进行了仿真。