Star Catalog Criteria Selection and Mission Catalog Update for a Typical Star Tracker

Star tracker is an attitude determination device which determines the satellite or spacecraft’s attitude using the star position information in inertial and body references. Star information is collected and stored onboard as a “Star or mission catalog”. There are several star catalogs that contain different kinds of information with different accuracy. In this paper the most used star catalogs are introduced and a few star catalog selection features are recommended. These features are weighted according to the star tracker mission type. For the selected star tracker mission, results demonstrate that Hipparcos star catalog is the best choice. Eventually using Hipparcos star catalog, a mission catalog is developed to be used onboard a typical star tracker.