The electromechanical angle computer inside the B-52 bomber's star tracker

Before GPS, B-52 bombers used celestial navigation with stars for positioning, but manual star tracking was difficult and time-consuming. In the early 1960s, engineers developed an automated Astro Compass system featuring an electromechanical Angle Computer that physically modeled the celestial sphere to solve complex trigonometric calculations. This analog computer used gears, motors, and synchros to automatically track stars and compute navigation data, providing accurate heading information within a tenth of a degree.