Inertial Stellar Compass (ISC) was a proposed instrument for an advanced navigation system designed to allow spacecraft to operate more autonomously by enabling precise attitude determination with an accuracy of better than 0.1 degrees across all three axes. It also provides the capability to recover orientation after a power loss.
The ISC is small in size and consumes low power to operate. The ISC was developed by
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
as part of
New Millennium program's
Space Technology 6 project in collaboration with
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.
The instrument functions with a combination of a miniaturized
star tracker
A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a camera.
As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may ...
and
gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining Orientation (geometry), orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in ...
s. It uses a wide field-of-view active pixel star camera and a micro electromechanical system to determine the real-time stellar
attitude
Attitude or Attitude may refer to:
Philosophy and psychology
* Attitude (psychology), a disposition or state of mind
** Attitude change
* Propositional attitude, a mental state held towards a proposition
Science and technology
* Orientation ...
(orientation) of the spacecraft. It has a mass of and requires 3.5 W power.
In 2007, it was successfully deployed and fully operational in space aboard the
TacSat-2 spacecraft.
As the
New Millennium Program had its budget cancelled in 2009,
it is unclear whether development of this instrument is ongoing.
References
New Millennium Program
Spacecraft instruments
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