Star sensor- ISRO's chandrayaan-1

India's dream project Chandrayan-1 might come to premature end with its star sensor's failure. Not exactly, it is a failure since backup has come in terms of gyroscopes. Definitely, this unpleasant incident leads to loss of accuracy in positioning Satellite in moon's Orbit. Here is the story about star sensors and gyroscopes. Know why is not a complete failure of a mission? Still every Indian can expect a lot from ISRO's Chandrayan mission.

Star sensor- What does it mean

As name says, Star sensor makes use of the positions of stars in space and calculates the altitude of space vehicle from a celestial body' surface. Here in this case, Star sensor is used to put Chandrayan-1 at a particular height from moon's surface.

Working

• Images of stars are converted to electrical signals.
• Determines the star positions using different algorithms.
• Now calculates the altitude from each celestial body.
• All these altitude info are used to position the space vehicle from required celestial body (Moon in this case)

Advantages with star sensor

It works effectively even after 4 years since their launch.
Calculates the altitude with 2sigma accuracy of better than 18 arcsec for each individual star frame.


What if it doesn't work:

Mechanical elements like gyroscopes will be put in use. But obviously, accuracy will be reduced with time. That results again decreasing in lifespan of spacecraft but not the failure of the mission.

So, we can still have some hope that ISRO's effort doesn't go in vein.

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