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Balloon-borne astronomy offers an attractive option for experiments thatrequire precise pointing and attitude stabilization, due to a large reductionin the atmospheric interference observed by ground-based systems as well as thelow-cost and short development time-scale compared to space-borne systems. TheBalloon-borne Imaging Testbed (BIT) is an instrument designed to meet thetechnological requirements of high precision astronomical missions and is aprecursor to the development of a facility class instrument with capabilitiessimilar to the Hubble Space Telescope. The attitude determination and controlsystems (ADCS) for BIT, the design, implementation, and analysis of which arethe focus of this paper, compensate for compound pendulation effects and othersub-orbital disturbances in the stratosphere to within 1-2$^{\prime\prime}$(rms), while back-end optics provide further image stabilization down to0.05$^{\prime\prime}$ (not discussed here). During the inaugural test flightfrom Timmins, Canada in September 2015, BIT ADCS pointing and stabilizationperformed exceptionally, with coarse pointing and target acquisition to within< 0.1$^\circ$ and fine stabilization to 0.68$^{\prime\prime}$ (rms) over long(10-30 minute) integrations. This level of performance was maintained duringflight for several tracking runs that demonstrated pointing stability on thesky for more than an hour at a time. To refurbish and improve the system forthe three-month flight from New Zealand in 2018, certain modifications to theADCS need to be made to smooth pointing mode transitions and to correct forinternal biases observed during the test flight. Furthermore, the level ofautonomy must be increased for future missions to improve system reliabilityand robustness.

Precise Pointing and Stabilization Performance for the Balloon-borne Imaging Testbed (BIT): 2015 Test Flight