Spinning mode algorithms for the Satellite Attitude Sensor

The Center for Research in Earth and Space Technology (CRESTech) have developed an innovative earth horizon sensor called the Satellite Attitude Sensor (SAS). The SAS utilizes multiple optical paths for a single detector in order to increase its field-of-view while maintaining high resolution. The result is an overlaid image.; This overlaid image has lost important information, and so image features can not be readily associated with a particular optical path. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a spinning mode algorithm that can overcome the ambiguous nature of the overlaid images sufficiently well for attitude determination.; The SAS Overlay Resolution Algorithm (SORA) was shown to resolve SAS's ambiguity problem. SORA operates by examining the apparent mounting phase determined from the image feature, and comparing that to the actual mounting phase for each optical path. A match of the apparent and actual mounting phase determines the optical path taken by the image feature.