Abstract: The star sensor is a high-precision attitude sensor with the ability to intermittently capture space targets and can be used as a space target monitoring platform. Accurately associating shortarc observations of star sensors is a prerequisite for achieving precise orbit determination of space targets. Through a large amount of observational data on the space target, it is found that the relationship between the declination and the right ascension of the space target always satisfies a sine curve with a period of 360 ° and that the peak value is related to the orbit inclination. A short arc association algorithm based on sinusoidal fitting for space targets was proposed, which avoids initial orbit determination and saves running time. In the simulation, the shortest observation time was 50s. By adding additional constraints to the dense GEO zone, it is possible to distinguish orbits with a 0.01 ° inclination difference. When the track interval is 3 h, the target association accuracy is above 90% under the three sets of noise conditions.

Key words: short-arc association, star sensor, target association, track segment, sinusoidal fit