Draper's Inertial Stellar Compass Fully Operational in First Space Flight.CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Draper Laboratory's Inertial Stellar Compass (ISC (1) (Internet Systems Consortium, Redwood City, CA www.isc.org) An organization founded by Paul Vixie, Carl Malamud and Rick Adams in 1994 and later sponsored by UUNET and other Internet companies. ) is now fully operational on board the TacSat-2 spacecraft, representing the first use of a MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) Tiny mechanical devices that are built onto semiconductor chips and are measured in micrometers. In the research labs since the 1980s, MEMS devices began to materialize as commercial products in the mid-1990s. gyro in a complete spacecraft attitude determination system. TacSat-2 was launched on December 16 from Wallops Flight Facility. Following basic spacecraft commissioning activities, the ISC was first turned on December 27 and two days of preliminary functional tests show the instrument to be working perfectly. The ISC combines a star camera and MEMS gyros with a microprocessor to provide a full 3-axis attitude determination system in a low power (3.6 W) and low-mass (2.9 kg) package, less than one-half the power and mass of conventional systems. Developed at Draper Laboratory and utilizing Draper's own MEMS Tuning Fork Gyro package, this flight validation represents a major leap forward in navigation sensors and MEMS technology for space applications. The fully autonomous, self-initializing instrument has operated flawlessly since being powered up on Dec. 27. Requiring no more than power and an occasional clock update from the host spacecraft, the ISC initializes upon startup, acquires and identifies stars from its own star catalog, and uses its "lost in space" algorithms to determine the direction in which it is pointing. If all continues to go well aboard the TacSat-2 spacecraft, a series of dedicated tests are planned for the coming weeks that will acquire extensive data to verify ISC performance under a wide variety of conditions. The ISC development was funded by NASA's New Millennium Program NASA's New Millennium program is focused on engineering validation of new technologies for space applications. Past New Millennium missions include:
NMP National Military Park (National Park Service) NMP N-Methylpyrrolidone NMP Network Management Protocol NMP Not My Problem ), which is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory “JPL” redirects here. For other uses, see JPL (disambiguation). Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a NASA research center located in the cities of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge, near Los Angeles, California, USA. in Pasadena, CA. The TacSat-2 spacecraft was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL Noun 1. AFRL - a United States Air Force defense laboratory responsible for discovering and developing and integrating fighting technologies for aerospace forces Air Force Research Laboratory U. S. ), and is operated out of the AFRL command center at Kirtland AFB AFB abbr. acid-fast bacillus AFB Acid-fast bacillus, also 1. Aflatoxin B 2. Aorto-femoral bypass in Albuquerque, NM. The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., formerly the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, was founded by Charles Stark Draper in the late 1930s to teach students how to design the scientific instruments necessary to accurately measure and study motion. , Inc. is a non-profit engineering research and development laboratory dedicated to providing technological solutions in areas including guidance, navigation, and control; highly reliable embedded software; autonomous systems; miniature, low-power electronics; and biomedical engineering. Draper serves the national interest through applied research, engineering development, and technology transfer. For more information about Draper and the Inertial Stellar Compass, visit www.draper.com. For more information about NASA's New Millennium Program, visit http://nmp.nasa.gov. |
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