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Projecte llegit

Títol: Star tracker algorithms for attitude determination in lost-in-space conditions

Estudiants que han llegit aquest projecte:

Director/a: GIL PONS, PILAR

Departament: FIS

Títol: Star tracker algorithms for attitude determination in lost-in-space conditions

Data inici oferta: 03-02-2025     Data finalització oferta: 03-10-2025


Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
    MU AEROSPACE S&T 21
Tipus: Individual
 
Lloc de realització: EETAC
 
Segon director/a (UPC): GUTIÉRREZ CABELLO, JORDI
 
Paraules clau:
Star tracker, star tracker algorithm, PhotSat, IEEC, star tracker accuracy
 
Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
A UPC team formed by professors and students are collaborating on the design of the ADCS for PhotSat, a 16U CubeSat currently being designed and constructed under the leadership of researchers from the Catalan Institute of Space Studies (IEEC). The highly demanding pointing requirements make the ADCS a critical subsystem for the mission success.
Just after its insertion in orbit, a satellite has no attitude information and must determine it without prior data, a situation that is usually called "lost in space". The algorithms required to obtain attitude information are very specific and quite important, as attitude is crucial for the mission development and success.
Lost-in-space (LIS) algorithms for star trackers rely on the definition of a suitable subset of stars to be employed for orientation determination purposes and can result in very significant computational loads. So, we plan to explore modern LIS algorithms to identify candidates with good efficiency at a moderate computational cost that could be adequate for its use in PhotSat.
 
Overview (resum en anglès):
The Institute of Space Sciences of Catalonia (IEEC) is developing PhotSat, a 16U CubeSat whose scientific goal is the all-sky observation of the 40 million brightest astronomical sources. As such, the attitude knowledge and control of the satellite is paramount for the correct operation of the mission. This is the main task of the Attitude Determination and Control Subsystem featured in satellites, and its most precise attitude sensor, the star tracker, is a critical instrument. Star trackers are devices that capture an image of the stars and determine the satellite's orientation with respect to a fixed reference frame through a series of algorithms. In this project, we provide an overview of the different algorithms comprising a star tracker and review the literature for existing star tracker algorithms capable of being compliant with stringent accuracy requirements in the arcsecond range, such as in the PhotSat mission. We place special emphasis on the critical lost-in-space case, the first attitude acquisition with no prior information of the satellite's orientation.

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