A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a camera. As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may be used to determine the orientation of the spacecraft with respect to the stars. In order to do this, the star tracker must obtain an image of the stars, measure their apparent position in the reference frame of the spacecraft, and identify the stars so their position can be compared with their known absolute position from a star catalog. A star tracker may include a processor to identify stars by comparing the pattern of observed stars with the known pattern of stars in the sky.
History
In the 1950s and early 1960s, star trackers were an important part of early long-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, in the era when inertial navigation systems were not sufficiently accurate for intercontinental ranges. Selecting a guide star depends on the time, due to the Earth's rotation, and the location of the target. Generally, a selection of several bright stars would be used. For systems based solely on star tracking, some sort of recording mechanism, typically a magnetic tape, was pre-recorded with a signal that represented the angle of the star over the period of a day. At launch, the tape was forwarded to the appropriate time. During the flight, the signal on the tape was used to roughly position a telescope so it would point at the expected position of the star. At the telescope's focus was a photocell and some sort of signal-generator, typically a spinning disk known as a chopper. The chopper caused the star to repeatedly appear and disappear on the photocell, producing a signal that was then smoothed to produce an alternating current output. The phase of that signal was compared to the one on the tape to produce a guidance signal. The system could be further improved by combining it with an INS, in which case additional circuitry on the INS generated the reference signal, eliminating the need for the separate tape. These "stellar inertial" systems were especially common from the 1950s through the 1980s, although some systems use it to this day.
Current technology
Many models are currently available. Star trackers, which require high sensitivity, may become confused by sunlight reflected from the spacecraft, or by exhaust gas plumes from the spacecraft thrusters. Star trackers are also susceptible to a variety of errors in addition to a variety of optical sources of error. There are also many potential sources of confusion for the star identification algorithm. There are roughly 57 bright navigational stars in common use. However, for more complex missions, entire star field databases are used to determine spacecraft orientation. A typical star catalog for high-fidelity attitude determination is originated from a standard base catalog and then filtered to remove problematic stars, for example due to apparent magnitude variability, color index uncertainty, or a location within the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram implying unreliability. These types of star catalogs can have thousands of stars stored in memory on board the spacecraft, or else processed using tools at the ground station and then uploaded.
