With the growing deployment of small satellites (such as CubeSats, Nanosats, Picosats, and Femtosats) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for targeted applications like imaging, communication, data storage, and rendezvous-docking mission, there is increasing attention on orbit maintenance and attitude control. A common approach for active orbit control involves the use of multiple thrusters, which, when properly arranged, can also generate the required torque for attitude control. Starting from a 24-thruster configuration, this paper presents a set of thruster configurations (referred to as a viable configuration group) that enable full six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) control. Further, configuration group that requires minimum total thrust to achieve 6-DOF commands are found among the viable configuration group. One configuration from each of these groups is further evaluated for its attitude control performance through a representative rendezvous-docking mission, demonstrating that even with a reduced thruster count, sufficient maneuverability can be achieved.

翻译：随着小型卫星（如立方星、纳卫星、皮卫星和飞卫星）在低地球轨道（LEO）上针对成像、通信、数据存储以及交会对接等特定应用的部署日益增多，轨道维持与姿态控制正受到越来越多的关注。主动轨道控制的一种常用方法是使用多个推进器，若布局得当，这些推进器还能产生姿态控制所需的力矩。本文从一种24个推进器的配置出发，提出了一组能够实现完整六自由度（6-DOF）控制的推进器配置（称为可行配置组）。进一步地，在可行配置组中，找到了实现六自由度指令所需总推力最小的配置组。通过一个具有代表性的交会对接任务，对从这些组中各选出的一个配置的姿态控制性能进行了进一步评估，结果表明即使推进器数量减少，仍能获得足够的机动能力。