Towards the attitude determination of nano-satellites with thermal imaging sensors

Due to the advancement of nano-satellite technology, CubeSats and fleets of CubeSats can form an alternative to high-cost large-size satellite missions with the advantage of extended spatial coverage. One of these initiatives is the Cubesats Applied for MEasuring and LOcalising Transients (CAMELOT) mission concept, aimed at detecting and localizing gamma-ray bursts with an efficiency and accuracy comparable to large gamma-ray space observatories. While precise attitude control is not necessary for such a mission, attitude determination is an important issue in the interpretation of gamma-scintillator detector data as well as for telemetry. The employment of star trackers is not always a viable option for such small satellites, hence another alternative is necessary. In this correspondence we present a new method, utilizing thermal imaging sensors to provide simultaneous measurement of the attitude of the Sun and the horizon by employing a homogeneous array of such detectors and show that with the proposed setup the location of an infrared point source can be determined with an accuracy of 400. We also introduce our ongoing work on a simulation model aimed at testing the applicability of our attitude determination algorithm. The first part of the simulation determines the orbit and rotation of a satellite with arbitrary initial conditions while its second part will do the attitude determination based on a multiplicative extended Kalman filter..