Optical Celestial Navigation System for High Mach High Altitude Operation Navy SBIR FY2008.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2008.1 Topic No.: N08-073 Topic Title: Optical Celestial Navigation System for High Mach High Altitude Operation Proposal No.: N081-073-0094 Firm: Optical Physics Company 26610 Agoura Road Suite 240 Calabasas, California 91302 Contact: Richard Hutchin Phone: (818) 880-2907 Web Site: opci.com Abstract: A navigational sensor system that can maintain an accurate position estimate without relying upon systems such as GPS, Galileo or Glonass is needed for a variety of military applications. Optical Physics Company is proposing to investigate a novel passive optical approach to build a modern day celestial navigation system (CNS) composed of (1) two star tracker modules and (2) a horizon tracker. The concept is elegant and sound, being based on a straightforward algorithm which locks celestial coordinates to an Earth-centric baseline. The proposed optical CNS will provide frequent updates to a low cost INS (inertial navigation system) which uses the 1 Hz CNS data in a Kalman estimator to provide 3 meter geo-location accuracy. During Phase I, we will develop an initial opto-mechanical design and perform a high fidelity simulation to evaluate noise and thermal effects. This will be followed by the design, assembly and test of one of the critical components, namely the horizon tracker. The other critical component, the star tracker is being developed under a parallel Phase II effort sponsored by the Air Force. Phase I Option work plan is to develop the Phase II prototype design for the optical CNS. Benefits: Boeing is our commercialization partner on this project. Two divisions have expressed interest, namely Boeing Advanced Global Strike Systems (AGSS) - headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri and Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems (S&IS), headquartered in Seal Beach, California. Correspondingly, one set of candidate customers are the hypersonic X-43A, X-43C, X-51, Conventional Strike Missile, and Long Range Time Critical Strike Missile systems; the F-15, F-18, B-1, AWACS, MMA, P-8, and future Long Range Strike Aircraft; and future weapon systems. The second set of applications entail military communication satellite systems such as UFO, WGS and GPS II. Return