Sira awarded space-vehicle-monitor contract
The European Space Agency has given Sira (Kent, England) a contract to develo¥a low-cost, totally passive, highly flexible fiberoptic spacecraft-monitoring system. The system will provide mission controllers with visual evidence of the status of on-board deployment mechanisms and replace present nonvisual technology that uses unreliable binary microswitches. Optical multiplexing of six or more optical-fiber-transmitted images to one or more smart sensors with on-chi¥processing capability will be assessed, according to Sira`s Mike Cutter.