The long - baseline space interferometer concept involving formation flying of multiple spacecraft holds great promise as future space missions for high - resolution imagery . A major challenge of obtaining high - quality interferometric synthesized images from long - baseline space interferometers is to accurately control these spacecraft and their optics payloads in the specified configuration . Our research focuses on the determination of the optical errors to achieve fine control of long - baseline space interferometers without resorting to additional sensing equipment . We present a suite of estimation tools that can effectively extract from the raw interferometric image relative x / y , piston translational and tip / tilt deviations at the exit pupil aperture . The use of these error estimates in achieving control of the interferometer elements is demonstrated using simulated as well as laboratory - collected interferometric stellar images .