Star tracker and vision systems performance in a high radiation environment

A part of the payload of the second Ariane 5 prototype vehicle to be launched by Arianespace, was a small technology demonstration satellite. On October 30/sup th/, 1997, this test satellite, dubbed Teamsat, was launched into Geostationary Transfer Orbit and would as such pass the Van Allen radiation belts twice per orbit. One of the experiments onboard Teamsat was the so-called Autonomous Vision System (AVS). The AVS instrument is a fully autonomous star tracker with several advanced features for non-stellar object detection and tracking, real-time image compression and transmission. The objectives for the AVS in Teamsat were to test these functions, to validate their autonomous operation in space, and to assess the operational constraints of a high radiation environment on such processes. This paper describes the AVS experiment, and the radiation flux experienced onboard TEAMSAT. This overview is followed by examples of the radiation impact on the AVS instrument flown onboard the TEAMSAT, and finally the operations of the various countermeasures are discussed.