Engineering Commons^™

Development And Implementation Of Star Tracker Based Attitude Determination, Casey Grant Smith

Masters Theses

"As interest in nanosatellites grows within the university community, the demand for inexpensive, space-grade hardware grows as well. Star trackers can be a luxury item for some spacecraft and therefore are often not considered due to their cost. Ideally, a star tracker could be built using inexpensive parts so long as the software is available. Unlike many other attitude determination instruments, star trackers are renowned for their high accuracy, yielding accurate and precise attitude estimates. However, development of this software can be overwhelming for the university settling, especially when multiple missions are on hand. If these instruments were readily available …