What disturbances are caused by rotating the satellite?
So long as the rotation is smooth, none. In the rotating frame, centrifugal force is constant, and everything in the satellite is at rest so coriolis force is zero. If the rotation rate w is slightly variable, and if the masses are off-center by a distance R which varies an amount dR, the centrifugal force will vary by 2wRdw+w2dR; since the centrifugal force contributes part of the total spring constant restraining the masses, this produces a small disturbance (~10-15 m/sec^2) in the common mode, a small part of which appears in the differential mode. The rotation itself does not cause any disturbances, but it may cause some disturbances to appear at different frequencies and with different amplitudes. Chief among these are the effects of thermal distortion of the spacecraft, eccentricity of the orbit, earth gravity gradient, any helium tides, and so forth.
