Orion will develop a flight control system capable of guiding a low-cost launch vehicle to orbit, leveraging on technology developed in-house for aircraft applications. This system combines guidance, navigation and control functions with strapdown inertial sensors in a single small package. Low cost and high performance is achieved by combining data from modern micro-machined inertial sensors in a Kalman filter with GPS position and velocity data. The inertial sensors will produce high-bandwidth attitude information in the short-term, while the GPS data will be used for low-bandwidth guidance. The GPS data will also be used to estimate the long-term errors in the inertial sensors. Within the scope of the Phase I SBIR program, specifications will be determined, components selected, and algorithms developed. The system will be prototyped and demonstrated in (atmospheric) flight as the major task in the Phase I program. Follow-on work will harden the components and perform system environmental qualification testing under representative vibration, thermal-vacuum and acceleration environments.
Benefits: Orion's goal is a system cost of approximately $8000. The unit can be used on many low-cost launch vehicles, as a secondary autopilot sensor on more expensive and capable launchers, or as a precision aircraft Attitude and Heading Reference System. Orion will seek to develop markets in all of these areas. An open-software architecture will allow launch vehicle vendors to customize the flight control and guidance systems to their particular vehicles and missions. The high degree of integration and low cost of the system can be a key component in inexpensive launch vehicles, furnishing payloads with less expensive access to space
Keywords: Strapdown INS, GPS, Flight Control System, GNC, Guidance, AHRS, Rocket, Gyro
