Investigation of the operating conditions influence on the optical telescope performance when capturing star images

Abstract

We propose combining the functionality of star sensors and the optical system of a nanosatel-lite optical-electronic telescopic module (OETM) for Earth remote sensing (ERS) in order to re-duce the influence of thermoregulation inaccuracy on the accuracy of linking the star sky and the Earth's surface images. The main difference from the previous works is that for the thermoregula-tion inaccuracy to be reduced, we use controlled local film electric heaters with moderate energy consumption located on the periphery of optical elements of the OETM system. High quality of the star sky images is sought to be attained for a nanosatellite-borne telescope in a circular sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) and includes solving a number of tasks discussed below. Arguments are given in favor of using the proposed OETM, which is capable of fully complementing / replacing the onboard astronomical imaging system of spacecraft.

Keywords

• astroorientation
• astrocorrection
• astronavigation
• earth remote sensing
• nanosatellite
• optoelectronic telescopic complex
• thermal control system
• temperature field
• heat flow
• star sky
• modulation transfer function