This research introduced a command-filtered backstepping control of mirror system to maintain laser communication between satellite and ground station. This requires a 2 degree of freedom gimbal mirror system using DC motors for target acquisition, pointing, and tracking (APT) system. This APT system is used for laser communication between satellite and ground stations. To track these desired angles, we have to control DC motors using introduced command-filtered backstepping controller (CFBSC) with disturbance. Command filtered backstepping controller has second order filter instead differentiation for simple and fast calculation. Introduced command-filtered backstepping control gives a smooth control signal for intermediate states. Simulation results verify that CFBSC outperforms SMC in terms of tracking error and disturbance rejection.

In the satellite operation phase, a ground station should continuously monitor the status of the satellite and sends out a tasking order, and a satellite should transmit data acquired in the space to the Earth. Therefore, the communication between the satellites and the ground stations is essential. However, a satellite and a ground station located in a specific region on Earth can be connected for a limited time because the satellite is continuously orbiting the Earth, and the communication between satellites and ground stations is only possible on a one-to-one basis. That is, one satellite can not communicate with plural ground stations, and one ground station can communicate with plural satellites concurrently. For such reasons, the efficiency of the communication schedule directly affects the utilization of the satellites. Thus, in this research, considering aforementioned unique situations of spacial communication, the mixed integer programming (MIP) model for the optimal communication planning between multiple satellites and multiple ground stations (MS-MG) is proposed. Furthermore, some numerical experiments are performed to verify and validate the mathematical model. The practical example for them is constructed based on the information of existing satellites and ground stations. The communicable time slots between them were obtained by STK (System Tool Kit), which is a well known professional software for space flight simulation. In the MIP model for the MS-MG problems, the objective function is also considered the minimization of communication cost, and ILOG CPLEX software searches the optimal schedule. Furthermore, it is confirmed that this study can be applied to the location selection of the ground stations.