Miniaturized Interferometric Star Tracker for Cubesats (C-MiST)

ABSTRACT: Optical Physics Company (OPC) is proposing to customize a novel miniaturized interferometric star tracker (MiST) design for cubesats, leading to a new star tracker device C-MiST. All of the optics, the detector focal plane array and the processor for C-MiST will fit inside 100 cubic centimeters, or 1/10th the volume of a 1U cubesat. OPC comes into this project having demonstrated the full size version of the interferometric star tracker (iST) design at TRL 5 under an Air Force Phase II SBIR contract. The proven accuracy of iST is 1000x better than the 0.02 degree requirement of this application. During Phase I, the existing design will be adapted to a lower cost simplified assembly process and plug-and-play interface. This will be followed Phase II prototype design. BENEFIT: OPC has partnered with Boeing for its interferometric star tracker technology transition. Boeing already has a picosatellite CubeSat TestBed 1 (CSTB1) in orbit with another - CSTB3 to demonstrate larger spacecraft capabilities such as higher communications bandwidth, three-axis control, onboard autonomy, and advanced dynamic power management in the works. Additional applications of OPC"s star tracker are Missile Defense satellite constellations, various DoD and NASA satellite GN & C subsystems, various ISR missions and GPS Independent Navigation and Guidance units.