The advanced stellar compass, development and operations

The science objective of the Danish Geomagnetic Research Satellite “Ørsted” is to map the magnetic field of the Earth, with a vector precision of a fraction of a nanotesla. This necessitates an attitude reference instrument with a precision of a few arcseconds onboard the satellite. To meet this dem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta astronautica 1996-11, Vol.39 (9), p.775-783
Main Authors: Jørgensen, John Leif, Liebe, Carl Christian
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:The science objective of the Danish Geomagnetic Research Satellite “Ørsted” is to map the magnetic field of the Earth, with a vector precision of a fraction of a nanotesla. This necessitates an attitude reference instrument with a precision of a few arcseconds onboard the satellite. To meet this demand the Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC), a fully autonomous miniature star tracker, was developed. This ASC is capable of both solving the “lost in space” problem and determine the attitude with arcseconds precision. The development, principles of operation and instrument autonomy of the ASC is described. This is followed by a description of test and performance verification methods, and finally key physical and performance data are given.
ISSN:0094-5765
1879-2030
DOI:10.1016/S0094-5765(97)00061-1