Spacecraft attitude determination from landmarks on space objects

Mukherjee, B and Ratnoo, A and Ghose, D and Ramadas, M (2020) Spacecraft attitude determination from landmarks on space objects. In: Journal of Space Safety Engineering .

PDF jou_spa_saf_eng_2020.pdf - Published Version Restricted to Registered users only Download (1MB) | Request a copy

Abstract

In this paper, an attitude determination methodology for a space vehicle is presented. The proposed method uses the line-of-sight vectors, connecting landmarks captured in the images of an on-board camera to the center of perspective, as directional references. It solves the problem of landmark identification, in the event of warping of camera images, by using a reference catalog of well-mapped distinctive features of planets or large space objects. The knowledge of the orbital position of the camera is further utilized to reduce the search space within the catalog of landmarks. Post landmark identification, if more than one vector directions are available, the attitude corresponding to the rotational transformation of the reference frame to the camera fixed frame are extracted from the set of reference vectors and their corresponding observed vectors. The absolute three axis attitude updates so obtained can either supplement other sensors or serve as a back-up option in case of failure or performance degradation of conventional attitude sensors on-board a spacecraft at its end-of-life.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Space Safety Engineering
Publisher:	Elsevier Ltd
Additional Information:	The copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier Ltd
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Aerospace Engineering(Formerly Aeronautical Engineering)
Date Deposited:	14 Aug 2020 11:06
Last Modified:	14 Aug 2020 11:06
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/66190

Actions (login required)

View Item