Star Tracker Research Articles

Quality Assurance of LINAC by Analyzing the Profile of 6-MV and 10-MV Photon Beams Using Star Track Device

Introduction: According to the American Society of Radiation Oncology, all patients receive radiation therapy during their illness, where radiation is delivered by the medical linear accelerator (Linac). The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality assurance (QA) of the Linac in analyzing the used dose profile in the treatment of cancer tumors. Material and Methods: This experimental study was performed using Linac (synergy device type) at Baghdad Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine laboratories, Baghdad, Iraq. The Star Track device was used for the routine quality assurance of the Linac, using photon beam for the reference Dmax and source to surface distance of 100 cm. The Star Track consists of 453 vented parallel plate ionization chambers. Results: The flatness and symmetry of beams for the reference field size did not exceed from ±2%, as they were within the allowed range. Moreover, the penumbra region showed a change in value that did not exceed from ±0.2 cm. using the Star Track method; maximum differences in beam symmetry and beam flatness were measured at 0.76%±2% and 1.17%±2%, respectively. Moreover, the maximum difference in the penumbra region was estimated at 0.12±0.2 cm. Conclusion: The results indicated, the Star Track could successfully calculate the characteristics of dose profile during a time period of 2,500 ms, showing the superiority of this instrument over other verification devices.

Efficient Star Identification Using a Neural Network.

The required precision for attitude determination in spacecraft is increasing, providing a need for more accurate attitude determination sensors. The star sensor or star tracker provides unmatched arc-second precision and with the rise of micro satellites these sensors are becoming smaller, faster and more efficient. The most critical component in the star sensor system is the lost-in-space star identification algorithm which identifies stars in a scene without a priori attitude information. In this paper, we present an efficient lost-in-space star identification algorithm using a neural network and a robust and novel feature extraction method. Since a neural network implicitly stores the patterns associated with a guide star, a database lookup is eliminated from the matching process. The search time is therefore not influenced by the number of patterns stored in the network, making it constant (O(1)). This search time is unrivalled by other star identification algorithms. The presented algorithm provides excellent performance in a simple and lightweight design, making neural networks the preferred choice for star identification algorithms.

CryoSat Ice Baseline-D validation and evolutions

Abstract. The ESA Earth Explorer CryoSat-2 was launched on 8 April 2010 to monitor the precise changes in the thickness of terrestrial ice sheets and marine floating ice. To do that, CryoSat orbits the planet at an altitude of around 720 km with a retrograde orbit inclination of 92∘ and a quasi repeat cycle of 369 d (30 d subcycle). To reach the mission goals, the CryoSat products have to meet the highest quality standards to date, achieved through continual improvements of the operational processing chains. The new CryoSat Ice Baseline-D, in operation since 27 May 2019, represents a major processor upgrade with respect to the previous Ice Baseline-C. Over land ice the new Baseline-D provides better results with respect to the previous baseline when comparing the data to a reference elevation model over the Austfonna ice cap region, improving the ascending and descending crossover statistics from 1.9 to 0.1 m. The improved processing of the star tracker measurements implemented in Baseline-D has led to a reduction in the standard deviation of the point-to-point comparison with the previous star tracker processing method implemented in Baseline-C from 3.8 to 3.7 m. Over sea ice, Baseline-D improves the quality of the retrieved heights inside and at the boundaries of the synthetic aperture radar interferometric (SARIn or SIN) acquisition mask, removing the negative freeboard pattern which is beneficial not only for freeboard retrieval but also for any application that exploits the phase information from SARIn Level 1B (L1B) products. In addition, scatter comparisons with the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project (BGEP; https://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre, last access: October 2019) and Operation IceBridge (OIB; Kurtz et al., 2013) in situ measurements confirm the improvements in the Baseline-D freeboard product quality. Relative to OIB, the Baseline-D freeboard mean bias is reduced by about 8 cm, which roughly corresponds to a 60 % decrease with respect to Baseline-C. The BGEP data indicate a similar tendency with a mean draft bias lowered from 0.85 to −0.14 m. For the two in situ datasets, the root mean square deviation (RMSD) is also well reduced from 14 to 11 cm for OIB and by a factor of 2 for the BGEP. Observations over inland waters show a slight increase in the percentage of good observations in Baseline-D, generally around 5 %–10 % for most lakes. This paper provides an overview of the new Level 1 and Level 2 (L2) CryoSat Ice Baseline-D evolutions and related data quality assessment, based on results obtained from analyzing the 6-month Baseline-D test dataset released to CryoSat expert users prior to the final transfer to operations.

Massive donors in interacting binaries: effect of metallicity

Metallicity is known to significantly affect the radial expansion of a massive star: the lower the metallicity, the more compact the star, especially during its post-main sequence evolution. Our goal is to study this effect in the context of binary evolution. Using the stellar-evolution code MESA, we computed evolutionary tracks of massive stars at six different metallicities between 1.0 Z⊙ and 0.01 Z⊙. We explored variations of factors known to affect the radial expansion of massive stars (e.g., semiconvection, overshooting, or rotation). Using observational constraints, we find support for an evolution in which already at a metallicity Z ≈ 0.2 Z⊙ massive stars remain relatively compact (∼100 R⊙) during the Hertzprung-gap (HG) phase and most of their expansion occurs during core-helium burning (CHeB). Consequently, we show that metallicity has a strong influence on the type of mass transfer evolution in binary systems. At solar metallicity, a case-B mass transfer is initiated shortly after the end of the main sequence, and a giant donor is almost always a rapidly expanding HG star. However, at lower metallicity, the parameter space for mass transfer from a more evolved, slowly expanding CHeB star increases dramatically. This means that envelope stripping and formation of helium stars in low-metallicity environments occurs later in the evolution of the donor, implying a shorter duration of the Wolf-Rayet phase (even by an order of magnitude) and higher final core masses. This metallicity effect is independent of the effect of metallicity-dependent stellar winds. At metallicities Z ≤ 0.04 Z⊙, a significant fraction of massive stars in binaries with periods longer than 100 days engages in the first episode of mass transfer very late into their evolution, when they already have a well-developed CO core. The remaining lifetime (≲104 yr) is unlikely to be long enough to strip the entire H-rich envelope. Cases of unstable mass transfer leading to a merger would produce CO cores that spin fast at the moment of collapse. We find that the parameter space for mass transfer from massive donors (> 40 M⊙) with outer convective envelopes is extremely small or even nonexistent. We briefly discuss this finding in the context of the formation of binary black hole mergers.

Fitting formulae for evolution tracks of massive stars under extreme metal-poor environments for population synthesis calculations and star cluster simulations

ABSTRACT We have devised fitting formulae for evolution tracks of massive stars with 8 ≲ M/M⊙ ≲ 160 under extreme metal-poor (EMP) environments for log (Z/Z⊙) = −2, −4, −5, −6, and −8, where M⊙ and Z⊙ are the solar mass and metallicity, respectively. Our fitting formulae are based on reference stellar models which we have newly obtained by simulating the time evolutions of EMP stars. Our fitting formulae take into account stars ending with blue supergiant (BSG) stars, and stars skipping Hertzsprung gap phases and blue loops, which are characteristics of massive EMP stars. In our fitting formulae, stars may remain BSG stars when they finish their core Helium burning phases. Our fitting formulae are in good agreement with our stellar evolution models. We can use these fitting formulae on the sse, bse, nbody4, and nbody6 codes, which are widely used for population synthesis calculations and star cluster simulations. These fitting formulae should be useful to make theoretical templates of binary black holes formed under EMP environments.

Non-Dimensional Star-Identification.

This study introduces a new “Non-Dimensional” star identification algorithm to reliably identify the stars observed by a wide field-of-view star tracker when the focal length and optical axis offset values are known with poor accuracy. This algorithm is particularly suited to complement nominal lost-in-space algorithms, which may identify stars incorrectly when the focal length and/or optical axis offset deviate from their nominal operational ranges. These deviations may be caused, for example, by launch vibrations or thermal variations in orbit. The algorithm performance is compared in terms of accuracy, speed, and robustness to the Pyramid algorithm. These comparisons highlight the clear advantages that a combined approach of these methodologies provides.

Micro star tracker with a curved vane for a short baffle length and sharp stray light attenuation.

We present a micro star tracker with curved vanes that offers a short length of the baffle and a sharp cutoff of stray light. The curved vanes are derived mathematically by ray-tracing in such a way that all the stray light from outside of the desired field of view (FOV) is reflected out. The proposed curved vane design allows a smaller number of vanes to completely cut off stray light, leading to a shorter length in baffle design. Furthermore, the capability of a sharp cutoff of stray light eases the sensitivity requirement of image sensors. For the experiment, we fabricated three micro star tracker baffles with curved vanes for 22° FOV, which are required to handle a maximum star magnitude of 5.35 for 100% sky coverage. The sizes of the baffles fabricated are 16mmΦ×16.5mm L with double curved vanes, 24mmΦ×12.1mm L with a single curved vane, and 27mmΦ×14.4mm L with double curved vanes. In comparison, the straight vane baffle designed for 22° FOV requires seven vanes with 18 mm length but results only in mild stray light attenuation with the cutoff at 32°. The proposed star tracker utilizes a 5-megapixel image sensor, 16mm×16mm×39mm in size and weighing 9.2 g with an accuracy of 1.288 arcsecond, a 20.6% improvement over when no baffle is used.

Design and Simulation of a High-Speed Star Tracker for Direct Optical Feedback Control in ADCS.

Star Trackers are often the most accurate instrument in an Attitude Determination and Control Systems, but often present a slow update rate, requiring additional sensor and sensor fusion algorithms to provide a smoother and faster output. However, the available rate gyros are either noisy, or expensive and heavy. The proposed work investigates the feasibility of high-speed star trackers with modern optics, sensors, and computing systems. Firstly, we investigate the sensitivity of an optoelectrical acquisition system stimulated by dim stars, secondly, we propose and evaluate an algorithm designed to operate at high speed and to be compatible with an Field-Programmable Gate Array implementation, before evaluating the performance of the implementation on FPGA. Finally, we debate the usability of such a system, both in terms of compatibility with a mission and CubeSat ecosystems, and in terms of performance. As a result, aside from removing the need for a rate gyro, Attitude Determination and Control Systems overall pointing performances can be increased. The proposed attitude determination system achieved a 0.001° accuracy, with a 99.1% sky coverage and an ability to reject false-positive while performing a single-frame lost-in-space star identification at a 50 Hz update rate with a total delay of 19 ms, including 13 ms.

Explaining the chemical trajectories of accreted and in-situ halo stars of the Milky Way

ABSTRACT The Milky Way underwent its last significant merger ten billion years ago, when the Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage (GES) was accreted. Accreted GES stars and progenitor stars born prior to the merger make up the bulk of the inner halo. Even though these two main populations of halo stars have similar durations of star formation prior to their merger, they differ in [α/Fe]-[Fe/H] space, with the GES population bending to lower [α/Fe] at a relatively low value of [Fe/H]. We use cosmological simulations of a ‘Milky Way’ to argue that the different tracks of the halo stars through the [α/Fe]-[Fe/H] plane are due to a difference in their star formation history and efficiency, with the lower mass GES having its low and constant star formation regulated by feedback whilst the higher mass main progenitor has a higher star formation rate prior to the merger. The lower star formation efficiency of GES leads to lower gas pollution levels, pushing [α/Fe]-[Fe/H] tracks to the left. In addition, the increasing star formation rate maintains a higher relative contribution of Type II SNe to Type Ia SNe for the main progenitor population that formed during the same time period, thus maintaining a relatively high [α/Fe]. Thus the different positions of the downturns in the [α/Fe]-[Fe/H] plane for the GES stars are not reflective of different star formation durations, but instead reflect different star formation efficiencies.

The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper CubeSat Mission

The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) mission will map the distribution of hydrogen around the lunar South Pole using a miniature neutron spectrometer. The mission builds upon a decade of lunar science, which has revealed both regional and more localized enrichments of water ice near the lunar poles. Localized enrichments are primarily within permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) and craters throughout the South Pole. The spatial extent of these regions is often below the resolution of previous neutron instruments that have flown on lunar missions. The neutron leakage spectrum from planetary surfaces is primarily sensitive to hydrogen abundance in the top meter of regolith, however, for neutron spectrometers with omnidirectional sensitivity, the spatial resolution is limited by the spacecraft orbital altitude above the surface. A low altitude measurement from a distance on the same scale of the PSRs could spatially isolate and constrain the hydrogen enrichments both within and around within those regions. A small spacecraft mission is ideally suited to acquire the low-altitude measurements required to localize hydrogen enrichments using neutron spectroscopy at the lunar South Pole. LunaH-Map will use a solid iodine ion propulsion system, X-Band radio communications through the NASA Deep Space Network, star tracker, Command & Data Handling System, and EPS systems from Blue Canyon Technologies, solar arrays from MMA Designs, LLC, mission design and navigation by KinetX. Spacecraft systems design, integration, qualification, test, and mission operations are performed by Arizona State University, AZ Space Technologies and Qwaltec.

Observation-Based Attitude Realization for Accurate Jason Satellite Orbits and Its Impact on Geodetic and Altimetry Results

For low Earth orbiting satellites, non-gravitational forces cause one of the largest perturbing accelerations. During a precise orbit determination (POD), the accurate modeling of the satellite-body attitude and solar panel orientation is important since the satellite’s effective cross-sectional area is directly related to the perturbing acceleration. Moreover, the position of tracking instruments that are mounted on the satellite body are affected by the satellite attitude. For satellites like Jason-1/-2/-3, attitude information is available in two forms—as a so-called nominal yaw steering model and as observation-based (measured by star tracking cameras) quaternions of the spacecraft body orientation and rotation angles of the solar arrays. In this study, we have developed a preprocessing procedure for publicly available satellite attitude information. We computed orbits based on Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) observations to the Jason satellites at an overall time interval of approximately 25 years, using each of the two satellite attitude representations. Based on the analysis of the orbits, we investigate the influence of using preprocessed observation-based attitude in contrast to using a nominal yaw steering model for the POD. About 75% of all orbital arcs calculated with the observation-based satellite attitude data result in a smaller root mean square (RMS) of residuals. More precisely, the resulting orbits show an improvement in the overall mission RMS of SLR observation residuals of 5.93% (Jason-1), 8.27% (Jason-2) and 4.51% (Jason-3) compared to the nominal attitude realization. Besides the satellite orbits, also the estimated station coordinates benefit from the refined attitude handling, that is, the station repeatability is clearly improved at the draconitic period. Moreover, altimetry analysis indicates a clear improvement of the single-satellite crossover differences (6%, 15%, and 16% reduction of the mean of absolute differences and 1.2%, 2.7%, and 1.3% of their standard deviations for Jason-1/-2/-3, respectively). On request, the preprocessed attitude data are available.

Hydrodynamic Escape of Water Vapor Atmospheres near Very Active Stars

Abstract When exposed to the high-energy X-ray and ultraviolet radiation of a very active star, water vapor in the upper atmospheres of planets can be photodissociated and rapidly lost to space. In this paper, I study the chemical, thermal, and hydrodynamic processes in the upper atmospheres of terrestrial planets, concentrating on water-vapor-dominated atmospheres orbiting in the habitable zones of active stars. I consider different stellar activity levels and find very high levels of atmospheric escape in all cases, with the outflowing gas being dominated by atomic hydrogen and oxygen in both their neutral and ion forms. In the lower activity cases, I find that the accumulation of O2 and increases in the D/H ratios in the atmospheres due to mass fractionation are possible, but in the higher activity cases, no mass fractionation takes place. Connecting these results to stellar activity evolution tracks for solar-mass stars, I show that huge amounts of water vapor can be lost, and both the losses and the amount of O2 that can be accumulated in the atmosphere depend sensitively on the star’s initial rotation rate. For an Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone of a low-mass M dwarf, my results suggest that the accumulation of atmospheric O2 is unlikely unless water loss can take place after the star’s most active phase.

Toward a Fault-Tolerant Star Tracker for Small Satellite Applications

Star trackers are autonomous, high-accuracy electronic systems used to determine the attitude of a spacecraft. In recent years, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)-based star trackers are growing in importance for low-cost and short-duration missions, but their fault tolerance against soft errors has not been studied in detail. In this paper, we propose a self-healing system protected with ad hoc techniques that can be used as the first step to implement a fault-tolerant COTS-based star tracker for smallsat applications.

Design and implementation of a star-tracker for LEO satellite

An important task of the attitude determination and control subsystem (ADCS) is the determination of attitude of the satellite in reference to the Earth or any other planetary and correct any deviation from the expected attitude. In order to determine the attitude of the satellite, sensors are needed to sense the orientation of the satellite. The star-tracker is able to determine the attitude from the view field of the star set without any prior knowledge of sensor information. In this paper, the design, simulation and implementation of a star-tracker is presented for LEO satellites. For capturing image data, the MT9P031 CMOS image sensor from Aptina Imaging was used. The star tracker uses a Texas Instrument OMAP3530 using an ARM Cortex A8. The processor supports powerful graphic interfaces resulting in reduction of the size and consumption power of the star-tracker. For storage and processing, the star tracker used NAND flash memory. The communication interface to the satellite is done through CAN Bus. One of the key features of this sensor is processing various algorithms for image processing, positioning, and tracking according to mission requirements. Quaternion estimator (QUEST) algorithm was utilized for positioning. The tracking algorithm utilizes information from the previous frame of the star-tracking. This algorithm is a high-speed, low cost, and low memory implementation. In the field tests, the identification success rate of this system was 96.81 %.

Dynamical Masses of Young Stars. II. Young Taurus Binaries Hubble 4, FF Tau, and HP Tau/G3

Abstract One of the most effective ways to test stellar evolutionary models is to measure dynamical masses for binary systems at a range of temperatures. In this paper, we present orbits of three young K+M binary systems in Taurus (Hubble 4, FF Tau, and HP Tau/G3) with very long baseline interferometry parallaxes. We obtained precision astrometry with Keck II/NIRC2, optical photometry with Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3, and low-resolution optical spectra with WIFeS on the ANU 2.3 m telescope. We fit orbital solutions and dynamical masses with uncertainties of 1%–5% for the three binary systems. The spectrum, photometry, and mass for Hubble 4 are inconsistent with a binary system, suggesting that it may be a triple system where the primary component consists of two stars. For HP Tau/G3 and FF Tau, model masses derived from spectral energy distribution-determined component temperatures and luminosities agree with the dynamical masses, with a small offset toward larger model masses. We find model ages for the primary components of these systems of ∼3 Myr, but find that the secondaries appear younger by a factor of two. These estimates also disagree with the age of the physically associated G-type star HP Tau/G2, which is older (∼5 Myr) according to the same models. This discrepancy is equivalent to a luminosity underprediction of 0.1–0.2 dex, or a temperature overprediction of 100–300 K, for K/M-type stars at a given model age. We interpret this as further evidence for a systematic error in pre-main-sequence evolutionary tracks for convective stars. Our results reinforce that the ages of young populations determined from the locus of M-type members on the HR diagram may require upward revision.

Algorithm with Patterned Singular Value Approach for Highly Reliable Autonomous Star Identification.

In the work reported in this paper, a lost-in-space star pattern identification algorithm for agile spacecraft was studied. Generally, the operation of a star tracker is known to exhibit serious degradation or even failure during fast attitude maneuvers. While tracking methods are widely used solutions to handle the dynamic conditions, they require prior information about the initial orientation. Therefore, the tracking methods may not be adequate for autonomy of attitude and control systems. In this paper a novel autonomous identification method for dynamic conditions is proposed. Additional constraints are taken into account that can significantly decrease the number of stars imaged and the centroid accuracy. A strategy combining two existing classes for star pattern identification is proposed. The new approach is intended to provide a unique way to determine the identity of stars that promises robustness against noise and rapid identification. Moreover, representative algorithms implemented in actual space applications were utilized as counterparts to analyze the performance of the proposed method in various scenarios. Numerical simulations show that the proposed method is not only highly robust against positional noise and false stars, but also guarantees fast run-time, which is appropriate for high-speed applications.

Centroid determination hardware algorithm for star trackers

The execution of centroid extraction algorithms using a microprocessor consumes considerable resources when compared to the other steps involved in star trackers. This paper presents a method to identify star centroids in star trackers by pre-processing the pixels using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) directly in the stream transmitted by an image sensor. The dedicated hardware filters the star pixels and transmits them to a processor, which computes the centroids of the respective image using an infinite impulse response filter. Thus, there is a substantial decrease in memory consumption and a reduction of the processor usage during the attitude determination computation, making the process more attractive for small satellites. A hardware-in-the-loop simulation is presented to test the performance of the system. It was possible to achieve a subpixel precision in the centroid coordinates' estimation, and also lower execution times in comparison with methods based on the processing of whole images.

Centroid determination hardware algorithm for star trackers

The execution of centroid extraction algorithms using a microprocessor consumes considerable resources when compared to the other steps involved in star trackers. This paper presents a method to identify star centroids in star trackers by pre-processing the pixels using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) directly in the stream transmitted by an image sensor. The dedicated hardware filters the star pixels and transmits them to a processor, which computes the centroids of the respective image using an infinite impulse response filter. Thus, there is a substantial decrease in memory consumption and a reduction of the processor usage during the attitude determination computation, making the process more attractive for small satellites. A hardware-in-the-loop simulation is presented to test the performance of the system. It was possible to achieve a subpixel precision in the centroid coordinates' estimation, and also lower execution times in comparison with methods based on the processing of whole images.

Introducing SOST: An Ultra-Low-Cost Star Tracker Concept Based on a Raspberry Pi and Open-Source Astronomy Software

Absolute attitude estimation sensors provide high accuracy pointing capabilities to spacecraft, but as developed thus far, they constitute a large fraction of CubeSat mission's budget. We introduce SPE Lab Open Star Tracker (SOST), an ultra-low-cost solution that currently provides sub-arcminute precision at a frequency of 1 to 3 estimations per minute in the Lost-In-Space scenario. Our Star Tracker development rests on open source astronomy software, the Raspberry Pi 3 B+, and its camera. We developed a new algorithm to solve the Lost-In-Space problem that works by acquiring an image and comparing it with different stellar catalog segments. We tested our algorithm using images from working satellites. The functioning of our platform was evaluated by using night-sky pictures taken from ground. We also conducted environmental tests of our platform by using a thermal-vacuum chamber. We optimized the catalog segment separation by analyzing the execution time, success rate, precision, and power consumption of the full platform. SOST delivers a mean precision below 1-arcminute for the boresight direction. With a segment separation of 10°, the attitude estimation is found in the 97.3% of the cases with processing time under 20s. The success rate improves to 99.8% by using 5° as segments separation but processing time doubles. This platform is open and freely available to CubeSat researchers interested in further development or deployment.

Analysis of the Exoplanet HD 189733b to Confirm its Existence

In this study, we examined the orbital periods, photometry, and radial velocity of one exoplanet in the HD star system: 189733 b. We constructed a high caliber exoplanet transit detection tracker that acts as a means to analyze the data constituted of the Raw Science images that we obtained from a DSLR camera. We used the BATMAN Python programming package to convert our data to light curves and a radial-velocity model. The radial velocity data was taken from multiple high precision research studies, which were then converted to a sinusoidal graph portraying the radial velocity with respect to time. Chi-square tests were performed on the data in order to examine the likelihood that observation was due to mere chance. We hypothesized that the creation of a DSLR camera star tracker would produce results that support previously established studies. The results of our studies were statistically significant and supported our hypothesis and previous studies. This study demonstrates the importance of accurately using the radial velocity and photometry data from high-precision research studies.