Embedded Star Catalog Calculation Tool for Autonomous Star Trackers
Bürger, Karoline C.; Fialho, Fábio de O.; Aykroyd, Christopher R. B.
Brazil
Abstract
Autonomous star trackers are crucial attitude sensors for spacecraft three-axis control. They are the most accurate commercial-off-the-shelf sensors available. An autonomous star tracker is an optoelectronic device that autonomously determines the spacecraft's attitude, using an embedded star catalog that is compared to in-orbit images to perform stellar field recognition. This work presents a computational tool to calculate the embedded star catalog for any specified star sensor. To optimize the star sensor design, the tool developed provides users with sensor accuracy analysis regarding the observed starfield.