Collins Aerospace helping to make space exploration and discovery possible

Spacecraft are highly complex machines that require precise control of their position and orientation in order to carry out their missions. One critical component that keeps them on track is the space wheel, also known as a reaction wheel.

Collins Aerospace has been engineering and manufacturing space wheels for the world's leading space agencies, for more than half a century, the majority of which are produced by our Mission Systems business unit in a plant located in Heidelberg, southern Germany.

Since 1974, more than 1,600 space wheels produced by Collins Aerospace have been launched in over 500 satellites, meaning that every month on average, somewhere in the world, a satellite goes up into space with our space wheels on board. Collectively our space wheels have clocked up 13,900 years of operation time, which is more than 100 million flight hours!

A space wheel is an attitude actuator, which when spinning at a high rate of speed, generates a twisting force or torque that can be used to adjust the spacecraft's position and orientation (known as attitude) in space. Spacecraft typically use three or four space wheels arranged in different directions to provide three-axis control.

Space wheels use the principle of conservation of angular momentum to maintain and adjust their rotational speed, enabling a precise, reliable, and efficient means of controlling a spacecraft's orientation in space. This is essential for carrying out scientific observations, communications, and other critical functions. They are also highly efficient as they do not use fuel and consume very little power.

Many high-profile space missions have relied on our space wheels for their success, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft on its exploration mission to Mercury (2004), and ESA’s ExoMars program designed to understand if life ever existed on Mars (2016), and more recently the sun observing satellite, Solar Orbiter, developed by ESA (2020), NASA’s James Webb telescope (2021), and ESA’s Jupiter Icy moons Explorer and Euclid, designed to explore the evolution of the dark Universe, launched in April and July respectively of this year.

Space wheels are an essential technology for space exploration and discovery. By providing precise attitude control, they enable groundbreaking space missions, from exoplanet surveys to observations of the early universe. As we continue to shape space technologies in the relentless pursuit of progress, space wheels will continue to be an essential part of space exploration and scientific discovery well into the future.