ARGO

Star Trackers for the SmallSats market

 

Description

The ARGO project addresses the market for SmallSats, satellite platforms with a mass of less than 500 kg, low costs and faster turnaround times than conventional satellites. A vital piece of information for the satellite is the determination of its orientation relative to the stars. The most accurate way to do this is through the use of cameras (star trackers) that recognise the stars, just as ancient sailors used to do when navigating by recognising constellations. The use of SmallSats has led to the emergence of low-cost star trackers which, however, have reduced accuracy and the ability to guarantee precision for the duration of the mission. The ARGO line of star trackers aims to be the answer par excellence to bridge the performance-cost gap for this target market. Based on the use of multiple cameras, they implement proprietary algorithms that intelligently merge star measurements, ensuring high accuracy and stability over time.

Result to be enhanced

The first product, ARGO 1.0, had an initial development phase through regional funding (Project CADET, Regional Operational Programme F.E.S.R 2007/2013) that brought the technology to TRL6 level. This was followed by TRL9 through SME-INSTRUMENT H2020 co-funding, with qualification in orbit for over a year. The qualification results were presented at the IAC 2022 International Congress (https://iafastro.directory/iac/paper/id/69180/summary/).

Why is it important?

The star tracker is the most precise tool to determine the orientation of a satellite in space and enable it to perform tasks that are essential to us, such as telecommunications and Earth observation/monitoring and inter-satellite communication activities. ARGO’s challenge is to offer high accuracy with appropriate size, weight, power consumption and price for the emerging small satellite market. Today, EICAS is close to finalising the development of a second ARGO 2.0 product for small satellite constellations and has founded the innovative start-up HIPPARCOS s.r.l to take the developed products to market. At the same time, through the VIR, PRISM-E and PASS calls for tenders, test benches were developed for the calibration of star trackers and their possible use in the detection of orbiting objects was investigated. Likewise, again with regional funding, the development of attitude control systems was started to complete the product portfolio to be brought to market.