TECHNIQUES FOR OPTIMIZING AN AUTONOMOUS STAR TRACKER

A method for determining the attitude of a spacecraft (1) by observing stars (2) within a starfield (3). A detector (13), camera electronics (14), and computer (15) located on board the spacecraft (1) are used to generate a set of star match groups by matching pairs of stars observed by the detector (13) with pairs of guide stars from a stored database (18) of guide stars. Match groups having small numbers of stars are eliminated. Non-eliminated match groups are validated. Redundant match groups are eliminated. A match group having the largest number of stars is selected. Finally, the attitude of the spacecraft (1) is derived from positions of guide stars within the selected match group. The guide star database (18) can be broken into an acquisition guide star database (8) and a supplementary guide star database (9). The field of view (20) of detector (13) can be broken into a grid of pixels overlaid by a grid of superpixels (21). The guide star pairs are preferably presorted in order of increasing angular separation. An identification matrix (IDGRP) can be used to speed the star identification process.