On Increasing the Accuracy of Star Trackers to Subsecond Levels

Zacharov, A. I.; Krusanova, N. L.; Moskatiniev, I. V.; Prohorov, M. E.; Stekolshchikov, O. Yu.; Sysoev, V. К.; Tuchin, M. S.; Yudin, A. D.

doi:10.1134/s0038094618070201

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The specifications of star sensors for Cubesat are close to the parameters of the small S3S star sensor [5] or the ST-200 sensor [3]. Modern commercial star sensors exhibit an accuracy of approximately 1 to 3 arcseconds , with errors around 0.1 arcseconds [8] in attitude determination. The open-source algorithm Astrometry.net, with known star maps, was used [9], and a horizon detection algorithm was developed for determining the pitch and roll angles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Positionless Attitude Estimation With Integrated Star and Horizon Sensors

de Almeida Martins,

Carrara,

D’Amore

2024

IEEE Access

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With an increasing demand for nanosatellites to perform accurate pointing, such as on Earth observation missions, the availability and accuracy of the orbital position and velocity information on board the satellite's computer become indispensable, as, for instance, when the determination of the attitude is based on star sensor for an Earth pointing satellite. The conventional way of providing this information is to run an orbit propagator, which is a high-order integrator algorithm such as the Simplified General Perturbations Satellite Orbit Model 4 (SGP4), onboard the satellite, supplied with the position and velocity uploaded from the ground station on a regular basis, e.g., every one or two days, depending on the required orbit accuracy. For a satellite mission with a more stringent requirement, an onboard Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver is desirable to get higher accuracy. Additionally, the GPS receiver can be used for time synchronization in-orbit and for accurate process tag timing. This operation requires a great computational cost and high memory resources. Since most cubesats are limited by the available processing power and usually on-board computers do not use multi-core processing, they suffer long computing times in forced mode. This work presents a new autonomous method to determine satellite position without orbit propagation, GPS, or the necessity of receiving velocity and position from a ground. The proposed system relies on a set of a star Sens or and a horizon Sensor to perform autonomous geocentric attitude and orbit (if desired) determination. A ground device platform composed of two cameras to simulate the star and horizon sensors, together with two portable projectors to depict images of a s tar field and the Earth limb was created to validate the attitude determination algorithms. An open-source code for detecting the inertial orientation of the star sensor through the astronomical imaging of the sky was employed, whereas the horizon sensor attitude was computed using standard image processing methods. The hardware and software requirements are presented, and their performances are discussed. Results have shown that a significant improvement in attitude knowledge can be achieved with this stra tegy, even without onboard orbit propagation. In fact, it can be shown that some orbit ephemeris can also be computed by this arrangement as a side effect.INDEX TERMS Cubesat, horizon sensor, star sensor.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Positionless Attitude Estimation With Integrated Star and Horizon Sensors

de Almeida Martins,

Carrara,

D’Amore

2024

IEEE Access

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“…This paper aims to overcome such limitations by studying a different approach to debris observation: the usage of star trackers (STR)s devices, the most accurate attitude sensors available for modern spacecraft with errors typically in the order of a few arcseconds or less [11][12][13]. A satellite's attitude is determined by detecting stars in the star tracker's field of view (FOV).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Satellite Star Tracker Breadboard with Space Debris Detection Capability for LEO

Filho

Gordo

Peixinho

et al. 2023

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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This paper evaluates the possibility of having a star tracker device running space debris algorithms. A simple star tracker breadboard was developed to evaluate the possibility of having a device running both stellar identification and space debris algorithms. The breadboard was built with commercial off-the-shelf components, representing the current star tracker resolution and field of view. A star tracker device and space debris algorithms were implemented and tested, respectively: Tetra and ASTRiDE. The device concept was tested by taking pictures of the night sky with satellite streaks. Seeking to overcome such limitations, a dual-purpose star tracker with stars detection and optical debris detection capability is proposed. Star trackers are usually used in satellites for attitude determination and therefore have a vast potential to be a major tool for space debris detection. The rapid increase of space debris poses a risk to space activities, so it is vital to detect it. Ground-based radar and optical telescope techniques used for debris detection are limited by a size threshold, detecting only a tiny amount of the total, reason why evaluating the possibility of detecting them in space is of major importance.

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