Posture metrology for aerospace camera in the assembly of spacecraft

During the spacecraft assembly process, the posture of the aerospace camera to the spacecraft coordinate system needs to be measured precisely, because the posture data are very important for the earth observing. In order to measure the angles between the camera optical axis and the spacecraft coordinate system’s three axes x, y, z, a measurement scheme was designed. The scheme was based on the principle of space intersection measurement with theodolites. Three thodolites were used to respectively collimate the camera axis and two faces of a base cube. Then, through aiming at each other, a measurement network was built. Finally, the posture of the camera was measured. The error analysis and measurement experiments showed that the precision can reach 6″. This method has been used in the assembly of satellite GF-2 with satisfactory results.