SIRA, THE UK space-instrumentation and hardware specialist, has won a contract which could lead to the development of a passive fibre-optic monitoring system capable of allowing ground controllers to view the deployment of spacecraft-based systems.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded Sira a feasibility contract under which the company will investigate how such a concept could be designed with minimal installation and power requirements.
The system will have to provide a clear picture of six or more critical deployment or scanning mechanisms in use.
Sira says that, until now, mission controllers of orbiting spacecraft have been "...flying blind, relying on notoriously unreliable binary micro-switches to tell them whether on-board deployment mechanisms have operated or not".
Dr Mike Cutter, head of technology and development at Sira, adds: "The beauty of a passive fibre-optic system is that it can be fitted after the spacecraft has been assembled, with minimal concern for interface issues such as electromagnetic interference."
Sira's system will include a single central image-acquisition-and-processing unit with the ability to select which sensor to view and what time resolution to use.
Source: Flight International
