Development of a High-Precision Pointing Platform for the CubeSpec Mission

Le résumé fourni par la source

The CubeSpec ESA In-Orbit-Demonstration mission will be the first CubeSat mission to provide spectra of stars at optical wavelengths. The collected data will enable astronomers to explore the interiors of massive stars through asteroseismology. To carry out this analysis, starlight must pass through a very narrow spectrograph entrance slit, necessitating arcsecond-level pointing accuracy and stability during observations. As traditional CubeSat Attitude Determination & Control System (ADCS) architectures cannot deliver the required performance, CubeSpec will be equipped with a so-called High-Precision Pointing Platform (HPPP). This additional control loop corrects the high-frequency residual pointing error that the ADCS cannot cope with. Unlike the ADCS, the HPPP acts directly on the payload, providing rapid and precise line-of-sight correction via a Fine Steering Mirror and enhancing pointing error estimates with a Fine Guidance Sensor. Effective communication and interaction between the ADCS and HPPP control loops can further enhance pointing accuracy, clearing the way for improved optimization. This work presents the latest updates on the HPPP system development. Results from a dedicated simulation environment and from an experimental setup to test and validate the HPPP performance are described.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.