Derivation and visualization of the real dynamic spacecraft orientation of BIRD

Kurzfassung

The DLR mico-satellite BIRD (Bi-spectral Infra-Red Detection) is an experimental small satellite, which was launched in October 2001 with the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C3 into a 570 km circular sun-synchronous orbit for recognition and quantitative characterisation of high temperature events (HTE) on the Earth surface. The main payload consists of two Infrared push-broom sensors and a push broom imager for the visible and near infrared radiation detection. One of the final mission objectives is the generation of thematic maps by a georefencing algorithm using the spacecraft's absolute orientation which reflects the real attitude behaviour of the satellite. Therefore the measurements of the Attitude Control System (ACS) are used. They comprise the data of several attitude sensors, like: two star sensors, a laser gyro system, two sun sensor systems and a magnetometer, and the data of the wheel system and the magnetic coil system as actuators and the information about the ACS status. These data are jointly processed to use the redundancy for fault-tolerance enhancement. This report will explain the joint offline processing of the attitude sensor data and its visualization for satellite monitoring purposes.