Precession-nutation correction for star tracker attitude measurement of STECE satellite

• Published in: Chinese journal of aeronautics 2014-02, Vol.27 (1), p.117-124
• Main Authors: Lai, Yuwang, Liu, Junhong, Ding, Yonghe, Gu, Defeng, Yi, Dongyun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attitude determination; Climate; Deflection; Exploration; Low-frequency periodic error; Nutation; Precession; Precession–nutation; Satellite tracking; Space technology experiments; Star trackers; Stars; STECE satellite; 动校正方法; 姿态测量; 小卫星; 岁差; 恒星跟踪器; 技术试验; 星敏感器; 空间技术
• ISSN: 1000-9361
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cja.2013.12.016

Space Technology Experiment and Climate Exploration （STECE） is a small satellite mis- sion of China for space technology experiment and climate exploration. A new test star tracker and one ASTRO 10 star tracker have been loaded on the STECE satellite to test the new star tracker＇s measurement performance. However, there is no autonomous precession nutation correction func- tion for the test star tracker, which causes an apparent periodic deflection in the inter-boresight angle between the two star trackers with respect to each other of up to - 500 arcsec, so the preces- sion and nutation effect needs to be considered while assessing the test star tracker. This paper researches on the precession-nutation correction for the test star traeker＇s attitude measurement and presents a precession-nutation correction method based on attitude quaternion data. The peri- odic deflection of the inter-boresight angle between the two star trackers has been greatly eliminated after the precession and nutation of the test star tracker＇s attitude data have been corrected by the proposed method and the validity of the proposed algorithm has been demonstrated. The in-flight accuracy of the test star tracker has been assessed like attitude noise and low-frequency errors after the precession-nutation correction.