Performance Analysis and Possible Design of an Optical System for Pulsar Navigation

The concept of observing pulsars for space autonomous navigation has already caught the attention of space agencies. Driven by the extremely stable nature of pulsar radiation, many research works and in-orbit demonstrations have been performed, demonstrating the suitability of these sources for navigation. The core concepts of the in-orbit demonstrated X-ray pulsar-based navigation systems and the recently proposed space navigation by optical pulsars (SNOP) systems are based on the capability to accurately define the arrival times of a pulsar signal. Therefore, the performance of a pulsar-based navigation system depends on the timing accuracy of the measured signals, which is a function of the characteristics of the navigation payload onboard the satellite. The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of the optical parameters of a photometer-based instrument on the timing accuracy of a SNOP system; moreover, a first optical design for the payload is proposed.