We present the characteristics of a star mapper, AMICA, which could be used for determining the pointing direction of external payloads mounted on the International Space Station. AMICA, which is complementary to the GPS attitude determination system provided by the ISS, is a stand alone system able to provide both the pointing direction in the inertial reference frame with arc-sec precision at a 1 Hz rate and the angular orientation of the stellar field with slightly lower precision. The star mapper is derived from the pointing system of the UVSTAR telescope that has flown three times on the Shuttle. We present a description of the AMICA optical and electronics architecture and its functionality. We also give a summary of the key pointing/tracking results obtained during the Shuttle missions. Finally we report on simulations performed to determine the instrument expected precision and performances, including the percentage of recognized stellar fields. AMICA is presently considered for flying in support ...
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