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Vision for Microtechnology Space Missions 15

applications are identified where MEMS is clearly the competitively superior
alternative, and the low-cost fabrication methods improve in device quality and
reliability, and industry standard packaging and integration solutions are formu-
lated, more companies focusing solely on commercializing MEMS technology will
emerge and rapidly grow to meet the market demand. What impact this will have on
society is unknown, but it is quite likely that MEMS (along with NEMS), will have
an increasing presence in our home and our workplace as well as in many points
in between. One MEMS industry group has gone so far as to predict that before
2010 there will be at least five MEMS devices per person in use in the United States.
It is not the intention of this chapter to comprehensively describe the far-
reaching impact of MEMS-based microsystems on humans in general. This is
well beyond the scope of this entire book, in fact. The emphasis of this chapter
is on how the space community might leverage and exploit the billion-dollar
worldwide investments being made in the commercial (terrestrial) MEMS industry
for future space applications. Two related points are relevant in this context.
First, it is unlikely that without this significant investment in commercial
MEMS, the space community would even consider MEMS technology. Second,
the fact that each year companies around the world are moving MEMS devices out
of their research laboratories into commercial applications — in fields such as
biomedicine, optical communications, and information technology — at an increas-
ing rate can only be viewed as a very positive influence on transitioning MEMS
technology toward space applications. The global commercial investments in
MEMS have created the foundational physical infrastructure, the highly trained
technical workforce, and most importantly, a deep scientific and engineering
knowledge base that will continue to serve, as the strong intellectual spring-
board for the development of MEMS devices and microsystems for future space
applications.
Two observations can be made concerning the differences between MEMS
in the commercial world and the infusion of MEMS into space missions. First,
unlike the commercial marketplace where very high-volume production and con-
sumption is the norm, the niche market demand for space-qualified MEMS devices
will be orders of magnitude less. Second, it is obvious that transitioning commercial
MEMS designs to the harsh space environment will not be necessarily trivial. Their
inherent mechanical robustness will clearly be a distinct advantage in surviving the
dynamic shock and vibration exposures of launch, orbital maneuvering, and lunar or
planetary landing. However, it is likely that significant modeling, simulation,
ground test, and flight test will be needed before space-qualified MEMS devices,
which satisfy the stringent reliability requirements traditionally imposed upon space
platform components, can routinely be produced in reasonable volumes. For ex-
ample, unlike their commercial counterparts, space MEMS devices will need to
simultaneously provide radiation hardness (or at least radiation tolerance), have the
capability to operate over wide thermal extremes, and be insensitive to significant
electrical or magnetic fields.
In the remainder of this chapter, recent examples of MEMS technologies
being developed for space mission applications are discussed. The purpose of

© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC