Refined Astrometry on Board a CubeSat
Boris Segret, Youssoupha Diaw, Valery Lainey

TL;DR
This paper presents an onboard star-field navigation algorithm tested on the OPS-SAT CubeSat, demonstrating refined astrometry capabilities that improve pointing accuracy and beacon localization using quaternion algebra.
Contribution
The study introduces the Angle-based Correlation (AbC) algorithm for onboard astrometry, validated through in-orbit experiments on OPS-SAT, enhancing CubeSat navigation precision.
Findings
Successful onboard implementation of AbC algorithm
Improved accuracy in beacon direction estimation
Potential to reduce platform attitude errors
Abstract
Optical navigation on a CubeSat must rely on the best extraction of the directions of some beacons from on-board images. We present an experiment on OPS-SAT, a CubeSat of the European Space Agency (ESA), that will characterize an onboard algorithm to this aim, named Angle-based Correlation (AbC). OPS-SAT is a 3-unit CubeSat with an Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS) and an imager that have proved their reliability with typical performance at CubeSat scale. We selected a few star-fields that all present enough visible stars within a 10 ? field of view. When our experiment is run, OPS-SAT is pointed to the most convenient star-field at that time. There, the star-field is imaged and subwindows are extracted from the image around the expected location of each star, based on the attitude-quaternion reported by the ADCS. The AbC reconstructs the absolute direction of the central…
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Taxonomy
TopicsInertial Sensor and Navigation · Spacecraft Design and Technology · Space Satellite Systems and Control
