The ST5000: a high-precision star tracker and attitude determination system

The University of Wisconsin's Space Astronomy Laboratory has designed and built a Star Tracker suitable for use on sounding rockets and class D satellites. This device brings together autonomous attitude determination ("Lost in Space" mode), multi-star tracking, and a novel form of Progressive Image Transmission (US patent #5,991,816), which allows the device to be used as an ultra-low bandwidth imager. The Star Tracker 5000 (ST5000) reached operational status in a suborbital sounding rocket flight in August 2007. The ST5000 determined the rocket's inertial (FK5) attitude with arcsecond precision using its autonomous attitude determination capability, and then provided continuous sub-arc-second tracking for the full 360-second on-target portion of the flight. The ST5000 RMS tracking error was 0.54 arc-seconds in yaw and pitch, and 17 arc-seconds in roll. The vehicle RMS jitter was 0.5 arc-seconds in yaw and pitch, and 10 arc-seconds in roll. The ST5000 was funded by NASA grants NAG5-7026 and NAG5-8588.