1. Metrology on-board PROBA-3: The shadow position sensors subsystem
- Author
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Gerardo Capobianco, Marco Romoli, Jorg Versluys, Massimiliano Belluso, Steven Buckley, Vladimiro Noce, Silvano Fineschi, Aline Hermans, Marta Casti, Damien Galano, Mauro Focardi, Cédric Thizy, Alessandro Bemporad, and Davide Loreggia
- Subjects
Atmospheric Science ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Spacecraft ,business.industry ,Payload ,Computer science ,Aerospace Engineering ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,01 natural sciences ,Metrology ,law.invention ,Telescope ,Geophysics ,Space and Planetary Science ,law ,0103 physical sciences ,General Earth and Planetary Sciences ,Satellite ,Aerospace engineering ,business ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,Coronagraph ,Position sensor ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Eclipse - Abstract
PROBA-3 is an ESA mission aimed at the demonstration of formation flying performance of two satellites that will form a giant coronagraph in space. The first spacecraft will host a telescope imaging the solar corona in visible light, while the second, the external occulter, will produce an artificial eclipse. This instrument is named ASPIICS (Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun). To accomplish the payload's scientific tasks, PROBA-3 will ensure sub-millimeter reciprocal positioning of its two satellites using closed-loop on-board metrology. Several metrology systems will be used and the Shadow Position Sensors (SPS) subsystem senses the penumbra around the instrument aperture and returns the 3-D displacement of the coronagraph satellite, with respect to its nominal position, by running a dedicated algorithm. In this paper, we describe how the SPS works and the choices made to accomplish the mission objectives.
- Published
- 2021
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