S P G
Space Payloads Group at IIA
STARBERRYSENSE

StarBerry Sense

A star tracker is required in any spacecraft that requires highly accurate attitude information and/or the velocity vectors. Starberry Sense is a centroiding star camera that can identify stars in the field of view and estimate the coordinates of its look direction.

System Overview

Starberry Sense uses the single board computer raspberry pi interfaced to an OV5647 sensor to capture the sky image. It has a built-in power regulator unit with isolation to convert the unregulated spacecraft bus voltage (9-36V) to 5V. The core of the unit is the raspberry pi board that runs on linux.

The starSense software runs on the single board computer. It acquires the image from the camera sensor, perform the required computational tasks to identify stars and calculate attitude information, and finally write the output to the spacecraft BUS interface.

Benefits

• Low cost commercial-of -the-shelf (COTS) components
• Open source software
• Configurable system - can operate as:
  • An imaging camera
  • A centroiding camera
  • A star sensor
• Configurable output interface (UART/RS232/RS485/etc.)

Instrument

• Optics: Schneider lens system
• Field of view: 12 degrees
• Sensitivity: 5th V_magnitude in 200 ms
• Processing speed: 1 frame/s
• Accuracy: ~30"
• Power: 3W
• Mass: 960 gm (including baffle)
• Dimension: 99 x 75 x 69 mm

Status

Starberry Sense is assembled, calibrated and tested at IIA. The first space flight was on the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) on-board PSLV-C55 in April 2023. Prior to the flight, starberry sense cleared all the flight qualification requirements (vibration, 50g shock and thermo-vacuum).

Instrument performance met our expectations. POEM is designed for short term (~days) experiments in space. Starberry Sense was alive for 5+ months in space, until the platform was turned off.

Based on the feedback and performance data, we are working on further improvements and software updates.

Starberry Sense mounted on the POEM-2, the PSLV-C55 4th stage. PSLV Lift off on 27th April 2023 and the first light image.

Publications

1. Chandra, Bharat. et al., Low-cost Raspberry Pi star sensor for small satellites. II: Starberrysense flight and in-orbit performance, Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments and Systems, Volume 10, id. 026002 (2024)
2. Chandra, Bharat. et al., Low-cost Raspberry Pi star sensor for small satellites, Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, Volume 8, id. 036002 (2022)