Dude Where'S My Stars: A Novel Topologically Justified Approach To Star Tracking

For thousands of years, humankind has utilized star tracking to measure both time and geographical location. In the modern technological era, the problem of telling one's orientation and position from images of the stars has newfound importance when related to satellite communication systems. For example, developments in laser-based communication systems promise huge gains in data rates; however, they tend to require a much finer pointing accuracy in order to hit and track their target as compared to radio frequency due to having a more focused emission pattern. As such, satellites with laser-based communications systems require the ability to obtain their attitude with a much higher degree of accuracy than traditional radio-based communication. For example, in [1], the Mars-to-Earth optical communications system studied requires a pointing accuracy on the order of 2-5 microradians, with an estimated update clock of several hundred Hertz. For contrast, the high-gain antenna of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) had a pointing accuracy requirement of 2.08 milliradians that could update at 10Hz-10kHz [2] (note that MRO did not use star trackers, but rather used the Electra radio; one can study its performance in [3]).