A system to measure absolute low frequency acceleration on the International Space Station

Author

Hamacher, Hans ; Richter, Hans-Ewald ; Drees, Stefan

Author_Institution

Inst. for Space Simulation, German Aerosp. Center, Cologne, Germany

Volume

1

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

249

Abstract

The characterization of the microgravity environment of the International Space Station (ISS) demands acceleration measurements at various locations of the spacecraft between 0 Hz and 300 Hz. The lowest residual acceleration occurs in the quasi-static or low frequency range between 0 Hz and 0.01 Hz, where the level reaches the sub-μg range (1 μg=10^-6 g, 1 g=9.81 m/s²). This requires on-orbit calibration which has to be repeated from time to time to eliminate the sensor bias and its drift. The accelerometer system QSAM (quasi-steady acceleration measurement) has been developed for this purpose and was recently flown on the Space Shuttle MSL-1 mission. The combination of flipping and fixed sensors allows calibration during any operational state of the spacecraft providing a continuous set of acceleration data not interrupted by the calibration process

Keywords

acceleration measurement; accelerometers; aerospace testing; calibration; space vehicles; zero gravity experiments; 0 to 0.01 Hz; International Space Station; QSAM accelerometer system; absolute low frequency acceleration; fixed sensors; flipping sensors; microgravity environment; on-orbit calibration; quasi-static frequency range; quasi-steady acceleration measurement; Acceleration; Accelerometers; Aerospace simulation; Calibration; Frequency measurement; International Space Station; Laboratories; Space shuttles; Space stations; Space vehicles;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 1999. IMTC/99. Proceedings of the 16th IEEE

Conference_Location

Venice

ISSN

1091-5281

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5276-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IMTC.1999.776755

Filename

776755