The Boeing Company

James P Alstad

Rongsheng Li

Yeong-Wei Andy Wu

Richard A Fowell

David D Needelman

Peter C Lai

A system () includes: a) A vehicle () includes an attitude or angular velocity control system (), a plurality of star trackers or star sensors () each having a field of view (); b) a memory () having a star catalog (), a star pair catalog () and a reference table () stored therein; and c) a processor () coupled to the attitude or angular velocity control system (), the star trackers or star sensors (), and the memory (). The processor () determines the vehicle inertial attitude or angular velocity or sensor alignment, based, in part, on the star pair catalog () and reference table (). The design of the star pair catalog () and reference table () is suitable for rapid determination of attitude or angular velocity or sensor alignment, and an efficient use of memory.

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Palos Verdes Estate, CA, United States of America

James P Alstad