An optimal recursive filter for the attitude determination of the spacelab instrument pointing subsystem

The instrument pointing subsystem (IPS) is a three-axis stabilized platform developed to point various astronomical observation instruments aboard NASA's shuttle. In order to compensate for system drifts and attitude errors, the IPS utilizes a linearized Kalman filter (LKF) with precomputed gains. Since the a priori gains are generated for an expected system configuration, any system variations result in a suboptimal estimation process. The performance of two real-time estimation filters is compared with that of the current LKF implementation. It is shown that a real-time estimation filter that reduces sensitivity to system variations and preflight computations is feasible.<>