Patent Document ID: 20050090948
Application ID: 10939994
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for determining the position of a spacecraft based upon a determination of direction vectors and spin vectors, in which sensor data and spin data are determined as input variables for position determination, said method comprising: a sensor measuring a direction vector in a body-fixed coordinate system, as a first vector determination; determining a reference direction vector in a reference coordinate system based on the path position of the spacecraft and an orbit model; as a second vector determination; determining an overall spin vector of the spacecraft in the body-fixed coordinate system, as a third vector determination; determining a reference overall spin vector of the spacecraft in a reference coordinate system by one of time propagation of known initial values of the overall spin of the spacecraft and time tracking a reference model of overall spin, as a fourth vector; and determining the position of the spacecraft based on said first through fourth vectors.