Celestaire Products including Astra Sextants, Sight reduction Tables, Nautical Almanacs, and Plotting Sheets

Celestaire Products

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Celestaire, Inc

The flight instrument was a Celestaire Astra III Professional hybrid brass/aluminum sextant, serial number 1183118. It was outfitted with a 7x35, 6.5◦field-of-view prism telescope for sighting.
The manufacturers calibration certificate is dated Feb 11, 2015 and indicates performance within 0.1 arc min in the regions as indicated in Table 1. This model was chosen based on results from the 2015 study for its accuracy (achieved by the superior machining tolerances of the brass arc vs. aluminum) combined with the lower mass and slightly more compact construction of the aluminum
frame than a solid brass instrument. A spare telescope, horizon mirror, and index mirror were flown for the experiment as well as a microfiber cleaning cloth, adjustment wrench, and screwdriver. A
lanyard was included but was not used by the crew, as they indicated it was not needed in microgravity and having hook-and-loop fastener tape on the handle was more useful for temporarily securing the sextant to a wall if needed.
The model of sextant instrument used is shown in Figure 2. Flight certification required evaluating and documenting all the components for acceptable characteristics of flammability, outgassing, fracture, etc. The main safety concern for use on ISS was breakage of the glass or mirror components during vibration loads, so it was placed in two plastic bags and stowed in protective foam for launch as shown in Figure 3. The crew reported the instrument had no damage upon first unpackand inspection on-orbit.

Products Details for the Astra III Professional Sextant

Astra III Professional

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Astra III Professional with Case

NASA Selects Astra III Professional for testing on International Space Station.
Just as the Astra IIIB has become world famous as the premier low cost metal sextant, the Astra III Professional Model with its low cost, high accuracy, and excellent handling qualities is destined to be the standard for professional seamen. Its constructed with a bronze arc fused to an aluminum frame making it very light weight.

Astra III Professional Sextant

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