Star sensors and computer vision systems are generally used for spacecraft navigation in deep space, both of which make
use of image sensors. To mitigate the payload of the spacecraft, a new star sensor prototype with extending use as a
rendezvous and docking positioning system is described in this paper. An adaptive processing element is used to control
the process of image acquiring, image pre-processing and image recognition, which makes the sharing of the image
sensor feasible. The software is discussed about how to realize the two applications. The earth based experiments verify
the feasibility and validity of the design, which may make a little contribution on the deep space explorations.
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