On-board correction of systematic error of Earth sensors |
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Authors: | Alex T.K. Shrivastava S.K. |
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Affiliation: | Indian Space Res. Organ. Satellite Center, Bangalore; |
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Abstract: | Infrared Earth sensors are used in spacecraft for attitude sensing. Their accuracy is limited by systematic and random errors. Dominant sources of systematic errors are analyzed for a typical scanning infrared Earth sensor used in a remote-sensing satellite in a 900-km Sun-synchronous orbit. The errors considered arise from seasonable variation of infrared radiation; oblate shape of the Earth; ambient temperature of sensors; changes in spin/scan period; and misalignment of the axis of the sensors. Simple relations are derived using least-squares curve fitting for onboard correction of these errors. With these, it is possible to improve the accuracy of attitude determination by eight fold and achieve performance comparable to ground-based post-facto attitude computation |
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