September 4, 2007

CSA is researching the use of laser links among formation-flying satellites to determine satellite attitude and position. The company was awarded a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase 1 contract by the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), and is teamed with subcontractor State University of New York – Buffalo. The Air Force Research Laboratory will provide technical oversight. To date, star trackers and inertial navigation units are combined with GPS measurements to determine spacecraft absolute attitude, and GPS alone is used to determine spacecraft absolute position. If absolute attitude and position of one of the satellites are known using traditional means, the information derived from the communication links can be used to derive absolute attitude and position of all the satellites in the formation. The research will use an extended Kalman filter formulation to estimate the relative attitude and position of two or more platforms.