Attitude estimation method of a star tracker

摘要

The method involves modeling spatial errors across a pixel and a view field of a star tracker (1), and partitioning the view field into elementary zones. A difference of inter-star distance angular distances (3, 4) respectively measured by the star tracker and calculated from catalog information of an on-board star catalog (2) is formulated. An estimation filter is used to realign a state vector formed by amplitudes of the errors from the difference of the distances (3, 4), where the errors modeling, view field partitioning, difference formulating and filter using steps are interchangeable. An independent claim is also included for an equipment for estimating an attitude of a spacecraft.