Starting from 1995 Galileo is working to develop a family of autonomous Star Trackers capable of providing attitude information without any a-priori attitude knowledge: a custom design combining autonomy with high pointing accuracy was developed for the ROSETTA Mission. Reacting to the increasing demand, from the space commercial market, for Autonomous Star Trackers to be used in Earth Observation and Geostationary satellites (applications characterized by severe radiation orbits, long duration, and allowing production of large quantities at competitive prices) Galileo developed and qualified a medium field of view AUTONOMOUS STAR TRACKER (called A-STR) which is now ready to fly. A-STR is a single package attitude sensor and is based on a radiation hardened design, then capable to ensure robust and accurate three axis attitude determination in a mass and power consumption very low for such class of instrument. The modular design of the A-STR sensor allows an easy adaptation to the requirement of different missions. The sensor will shortly fly on board Radarsat2, Messenger, Cosmo-Skymed programs.
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