ISSN 2070-7401 (Print), ISSN 2411-0280 (Online)
Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa
CURRENT PROBLEMS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE

  

Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2021, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 116-126

Investigation of photometric characteristics of stellar images in real operating conditions of stellar sensors

G.A. Avanesov 1 , A.N. Vasileiskaya 1 , A.V. Nikitin 1 , O.V. Filippova 1 , B.A. Yumatov 1 
1 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
Accepted: 18.11.2021
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2021-18-6-116-126
In 2016, on board the Resurs-P No. 3 spacecraft, a unique experiment was carried out to study the operation of stellar attitude sensors in real operating conditions. The “internal” data calculated by the instruments — the coordinates of the stars on the photodetector matrix and related information — were transmitted from the spacecraft to the ground receiving stations. At the same time, the regular operation of the instruments was not interrupted. As a result of processing the transmitted information by the on-board algorithms of the instrument and collecting complex statistics on the recognized stars, its measuring properties were studied in detail. The study of the nearest neighborhoods of recognized stars made it possible to estimate the contribution of the surrounding stars to the useful signal of the main stars, both from the point of view of the maximum permissible magnitudes and the critical distances to them. An analysis of the collected statistics on stars revealed errors typical of instruments in measuring their coordinates and made it possible to develop measures to eliminate them in the future. Based on the information received about the integral brightness of the stars, it was possible to understand how the vision of the device correlates with their different spectral characteristics according to information from different astronomical catalogs. The possibility and necessity of adapting data on stars from astronomical stellar catalogs when compiling the onboard catalog of the instrument, taking into account its parameters, was confirmed.
Keywords: star tracker, space experiment, full-scale tests, onboard stars catalog, integrated star brightness, systematic error, random error
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