United States of America As Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

Sean R Semper

Neerav Shah

Garrett J West

Sabrina N Thompson

Philip C Calhoun

Andrew Salamon

Kenneth Deily

A star scanner is provided that uses miniaturized high-speed electronics and an ultra-compact freeform optical design. The star scanner reduces instrument volume, reduces power consumption, and reduces costs, relative to existing star scanners. The optics can be used with a credit card-like footprint, electronics sensor board with optimally packed electronics.

Ultra-compact star scanner

A miniaturized astrometric alignment sensor may detect stellar objects and targets from which both stellar and object tracking are performed. The sensor may search for one or more bright opens in an image captured by a camera of a space vehicle, and determine if the one or more bright objects is a genuine star or a secondary element. The sensor may also catalog entries of identified stars after three or more bright objects are determined to be genuine stars, and display the cataloged entries of the identified stars, wherein the cataloged entries comprises positional and velocity of the space vehicle in relation of the identified stars and a sensor body reference frame.

Miniaturized astrometric alignment sensor for distributed and non-distributed guidance, navigation, and control systems

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Greenbelt, MD, United States of America

Sean R Semper