The embodiments of the invention disclose a navigation apparatus and a method for the surface inspection of a
spacecraft and relates to the technical field of the
aerospace on-
orbit-servicing technology, wherein the relative navigation of an inspection device and the
surface structure detection of a target
spacecraft are multiplexed. According to the invention, the orbital coordinate
system of the target
spacecraft is adopted as a navigation coordinate
system. The acceleration and
angular velocity information outputted by an
inertial measurement unit is adopted for the pure inertial navigation integral calculation, so that the navigation parameters of the target spacecraft relative to the navigation coordinate
system, including the attitude, the position, the speed and the like, are calculated. Moreover, the
point cloud data of the profile of the spacecraft are measured based on the triangle method. The obtained
point cloud data of the profile of the spacecraft are converted to be data in a geodetic coordinate system based on the short-time and high-accuracy features of the inertial navigation and the installation parameters of a linear
laser triangulation survey meter. In addition, the known structural data of the profile of the target spacecraft is rectified according to the actually measured
point cloud data of the profile of the spacecraft, so that the attitude and the position of the inspection device relative to the navigation coordinate system are calculated. Meanwhile, the attitude and the position, measured by a
Kalman filter, are integrated with the navigation information calculated by the
inertial navigation system. As a result, accurate navigation parameters can be obtained.