Star camera system and new software for autonomous and robust operation in long duration flights

The E and B Experiment (EBEX) is a balloon-borne telescope designed to probe polarization signals in the cosmic microwave background. It completed an 11 day flight over Antarctica in December 2012 / January 2013. EBEX requires 10 arcsecond accuracy on attitude determination for post-flight data analysis, and 30 arcminute accuracy for real-time attitude control during flight. The primary pointing sensors employed to achieve these pointing requirements are two redundant star cameras and two redundant sets of orthogonal gyroscopes. This paper is focused on the star cameras.