ASTRO APS3 AND ASTRO CL - NEXT POWERFUL GENERATION OF COMPACT STAR TRACKERS

Jena-Optronik’s ASTRO© APS is the most successful single box autonomous star tracker with several hundred units under in-orbit operation and still on order. This star tracker product had its maiden flight in July 2013. Since then, ASTRO© APS operates flawlessly on AlphaSat providing 24/7 telemetry data under ESA contract over the past 8 years. We will give a brief update regarding the performance status at mid mission geo-lifetime for this on-market state-ofthe-art star tracker product. Meanwhile, the development of the next generation of compact star trackers has been completed at Jena-Optronik. Based on the space qualified system-on-chip APS CMOS detector, FaintStar2, the ASTRO© series of Jena-Optronik star trackers has been modernized with the ASTRO© APS3 and the ASTRO© CL models. The latter one is specifically designed for the high volume constellation market. In the segment of the versatile high-rel autonomous star trackers, the ASTRO© APS3 will replace ASTRO© APS with an even wider range of functionality and performance using the outstanding electro-optical properties and functional capabilities of the FaintStar2 systemon- chip detector.