Librational Response The governing nonlinear non-autonomous differential equation does not have a closed- form solution. Numerical techniques are therefore used to advantage to study the effect of solar torque on thermally deformed panels. A suitable step-size of 1° is employed for integration. Some typical results are represented in Fig. 3. It may be observed that the torque due to solar radiation pressure on deformed panels is generally destabilizing. Even for a gravity gradient satellite positioned along a normally stable local vertical configuration in a circular orbit, the combination of thermal deformation and solar pressure can lead to unacceptably large amplitudes of pitching motion. In general, increasing orbital ellipticity results in still larger pitching amplitudes thus promoting librational instability in the process. These results clearly bring out the limitation of the gravity gradient stabilization of satellites carrying relatively large panels.
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