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224 MEMS and Microstructures in Aerospace Applications

technology pushes towards developing higher performing (navigation class) MEMS
gyros, accelerometer designers could revisit the application of MEMS technology
to the dynamically challenging requirements for telescope pointing control and
jitter suppression. GN&C technology development investments will be required in
many sub-areas to satisfy anticipated future telescope pointing needs. Over the next
5–10 years, integrated teams of GN&C engineers and MEMS technologists could
evaluate, develop, and test MEMS-based approaches for fine guidance sensors,
inertial sensors, fine resolution and high bandwidth actuators, image stabilization,
wavefront sensing and control, and vibration or jitter sensing and control. It could
be potentially very fruitful to research how MEMS technologies could be brought to
bear on this class of dynamics control problem.

10.7 CONCLUSION
The use of MEMS microsystems for space mission applications has the potential
to completely change the design and development of future spacecraft GN&C
systems. Their low cost, mass, power, and size volume, and mass producibility
make MEMS GN&C sensors ideal for science and exploration missions that place a
premium on increased performance and functionality in smaller and less expensive
modular building block elements.
The developers of future spacecraft GN&C systems are well poised to take
advantage of the MEMS technology for such functions as navigation and attitude
determination and control. Microsatellite developers clearly can leverage off the
significant R&D investments in MEMS technology for defense and commercial
applications, particularly in the area of gyroscope and accelerometer inertial sen-
sors. We are poised for a GN&C system built with MEMS microsystems that
potentially will have mass, power, volume, and cost benefits.
Several issues remain to be resolved to satisfy the demanding performance
and environmental requirements of space missions, but it appears that the already
widespread availability and accelerating proliferation of this technology will drive
future GN&C developers to evaluate design options where MEMS can be effect-
ively infused to enhance current designs or perhaps enable completely new mission
opportunities. Attaining navigational class sensor performance in the harsh space
radiation environment remains a challenge for MEMS inertial sensor developers.
This should be a clearly identified element of well-structured technology invest-
ment portfolio and should be funded accordingly.
In the foreseeable future, MEMS technology will serve to enable fundamental
GN&C capabilities without which certain mission-level objectives cannot be met.
The implementation of constellations of affordable microsatellites with MEMS-
enabled GN&C systems is an example of this. It is also envisioned that MEMS can
be an enhancing technology for GN&C that significantly reduces cost to such a
degree that they improve the overall performance, reliability, and risk posture of
missions in ways that would otherwise be economically impossible. An example of
this is the use of MEMS sensors for an independent safehold unit (as discussed
above in Section 10.3) that has widespread mission applicability.

© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC