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ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA ›› 2020, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (8): 623536-623536.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2020.23536

• Special Topic of Starlight Navigation Technology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Satellite stellar refraction navigation measurements and their performance: A comparison

NING Xiaolin1, LIANG Xiaoyu2, SUN Xiaohan2, WANG Fan2, WANG Longhua2, FANG Jiancheng2   

  1. 1. Research Institute for Frontier Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China;
    2. School of Instrument Science&Opto-electronics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China
  • Received:2019-09-29 Revised:2019-11-06 Online:2020-08-15 Published:2020-02-13
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China (61722301);Funded by Science and Technology on Space Intelligent Control Laboratory (ZDSYS-2017-04)

Abstract: Stellar refraction celestial navigation is an important autonomous navigation method for earth satellites. Measurements are an important factor influencing the navigation accuracy. The refraction apparent height, stellar refraction angles, and refraction star pixel coordinates (refraction star vectors) are three commonly used measurements of the satellite stellar refraction navigation. The obtainment methods and measurement models of the three measurements are introduced on the basis of the fundamental principle of the stellar refraction navigation. Under the same conditions, the navigation performance of these three measurements are compared through simulation and observability analysis. The simulation results show that the observability of the refraction star pixel coordinates is high, because this measurement contains both the magnitude and direction of the star refraction rays, while the stellar refraction angle and the refraction apparent height can only reveal the magnitude of the stellar refraction, exhibiting low direction observability. Therefore, the navigation performance of the refraction star pixel coordinates (refraction star vectors) is better than that of the other two measurements. Furthermore, the influence of three factors, namely, the accuracy of the star sensor, the satellite orbit height, and the installation angle of the star sensor, on the navigation performance of the three methods is analyzed.

Key words: stellar refraction navigation, refraction apparent height, stellar refraction angle, refraction star pixel coordinates, measurements

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