ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

For future advanced Earth observation or astronomy missions, an inertial reference unit (IRU) having high accuracy, a wide dynamic range, a long useful lifetime, and high reliability is required. The fiber optic gyro (FOG) is a strong candidate to fulfill those requirements: it has already been applied widely to satellites. We have been developing a high-performance FOG inertial reference unit (FOG-IRU) for use in future satellites. This paper describes the architecture and design results of the FOG-IRU. In addition, it presents a summary of performance test results and analyses of gyros’ critical items: angle random walk, scale factor, and bias repeatability.