Diurnal Star Tracking for Balloon-borne Attitude Determination
DAYSTAR: develop a prototype star tracking system to provide pointing knowledge to a diurnal, lighter-than-air platform. DayStar will improve on current attitude determination devices used on balloon payloads in two areas: daytime operation and accuracy.
Project Sponsor: Southwest Research Institute (SWRI)
Customer: Eliot Young
Project Advisors: Dr. Scott Pal (CU), Dr. Kroehl, Russ Mellon, & Dr. Kim Ennico
Project Manager: Michael Skeen
Team Members: Jed Diller, Kevin Dinkel, Zach Dischner, Aaron Holt, Tyler Murphy, Sara Schuette, Michael Skeen, Nick Truesdale, Andrew Zizzi
Project Outcomes
- Successful integration of engineering components
- Full data path demonstration
- Star tracking to 187 arcseconds RMS
- 0.4 arcseconds RMS by removing systematic errors post-processing