Project Title:
A Non-Volatile, Solid-State Recorder for Spacecraft
07.10-9302
910397
A Non-Volatile, Solid-State Recorder for Spacecraft
SEAKR Engineering, Inc.
4030 Spencer Street, Suite 108
Torrance
CA
90503
Scott R.
Anderson
310-542-9302
GSFC
NAS5-31935
134
07.10-9302
910397
Abstract:
A Nonvolatile, Solid-State Recorder for Spacecraft
A non-volatile, highly reliable, solid-state recorder (SSR) to be used on future
spacecraft in place of tape recorders will be developed. The SSR will be micro-processor
controlled and easily expandable to high capacity, and will successfully operate
in the environment of low-Earth orbit. Tape recorders have been used in spacecraft
to store mission and/or telemetry data ever since the first satellites were launched
in the fifties. The tape recorder has served a very useful and necessary function;
however, because of the mechanical tape transport system of tape recorders, they
have demonstrated reliability and life problems. Redundancy has been used to overcome
these reliability problems. For example, the Air Force DMSP uses four 1.7 Gbit tape
recorders to assure that at least one is working at the end of the mission; however,
this is costly in terms of both dollars and launch weight.
Most satellites presently use tape recorders. Just last year the European Space Agency,
through NASA, contracted for fourteen 1 Gbit tape recorders for the ISTP mission.
The French Spot satellite uses similar tape recorders. After demonstration of orbital
operation of this SSR, all satellites will use it instead of tape recorders. This
is a 20-to-30 million dollar a year market.
solid-state recorder, nonvolatile