The AA-STR from Leonardo is a Star Tracker that has a field of view of 20 x 20 degrees and a dynamic range of 1.5-5.5 Mi. This autonomous star tracker can track up to 15 stars and has a tracing rate of up to 2 degrees/sec. It has an acquisition time of less than 9 sec and an update rate of 4, 5, 8, or 10 Hz. The medium Field of View (FOV) star trackers are integrated into a single assembly with a radiation-hardened design that has an SEU tolerance of up to 170000 protons/cm2 /sec. It has a bias of 8.25 arcsec (pitch/yaw) and 11.1 arcsec (roll) and an NEA random error of less than 34 arcsec (pitch & yaw) and 288 arcsec (roll) at 2 degrees/sec. The star tracker features Active Pixel Sensor (APS) CMOS technology and supports MIL-STD-1553B and RS-422 data interfaces for telecommand and telemetry. It requires a power supply of 20-110 V and has a power consumption of 5.6-12.6 W.
The star tracker has achieved TRL 9 status and has flown on several successful missions such as Bepi Colombo, PRISMA, and AlphaBus. It has a mass of 2.6 Kg and measures 164 x 156 x 348 mm. The star tracker has a lifetime of 18 years in GEO orbit. It is suitable for a broad range of missions and is used in the commercial market of telecommunication geostationary satellites, Earth observation satellites, scientific satellites, and interplanetary missions/probes.
