Possible use of a narrow-field star tracker on the New Millennium SSI mission

Peter L. Bender; Robin T. Stebbins; William M. Folkner

doi:10.1117/12.317114

24 July 1998 Possible use of a narrow-field star tracker on the New Millennium SSI mission

Peter L. Bender, Robin T. Stebbins, William M. Folkner

Proceedings Volume 3350, Astronomical Interferometry; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.317114
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 1998, Kona, HI, United States

Abstract

A separated spacecraft interferometer (SSI) demonstration mission with three spacecraft has been proposed for flight under the NASA New Millennium Technology Development Program. Both the rotation rate of the interferometer about the normal to the plane containing the three spacecraft and the orientation in the plane must be determined accurately in order to permit the detection of white light fringes from sources that have visual magnitudes as high as possible. It presently is planned to use signals from tracking the science object plus other auxiliary information to determine the interferometer rotation rate dθ/dt and the angular position θ . We have investigated a possible supplementary approach that makes use of a combined beacon tracker and narrow-field star tracker on one of the two collector spacecraft. A very small beacon mounted on the other collector spacecraft can be viewed with respect to a reference star nearly 180 degrees away to determine dθ/dt and θ for the interferometer. Beacon/star tracker observations over roughly an hour appear sufficient to determine the sweep rate for starlight fringes in the interferometer to adequate accuracy and to detect the fringes.

Citation Download Citation

Peter L. Bender, Robin T. Stebbins, and William M. Folkner "Possible use of a narrow-field star tracker on the New Millennium SSI mission", Proc. SPIE 3350, Astronomical Interferometry, (24 July 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.317114

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