SATELLITE CAMERA ATTITUDE DETERMINATION AND IMAGE NAVIGATION BY MEANS OF EARTH EDGE AND LANDMARK MEASUREMENT

摘要

A method and system is disclosed for imaging a celestial object, typically the Earth, with a spacecraft orbiting the celestial object. The method includes steps of (a) operating an imager (10) instrument aboard the spacecraft to generate data representing an image of the celestial object; (b) processing the image data to derive the location of at least one predetermined landmark in the image and a location of edges of the celestial object in the image; and (c) further processing the detected locations to obtain the attitude of the imager instrument.