ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

In the early 2000s, AIRBUS DS SAS developed, in collaboration with a French SME, Ixspace, and with CNES and ESA support, a family of inertial reference units (IRU) for a large range of space applications. This family of products, called 'Astrix™', is based on solid-state Fibre Optic Gyro (FOG) technology, with the Astrix 200 and Astrix 120 providing high performance solutions. One of the earlier challenge was the prediction of the behaviour of the optical fibered elements and electro-optics components in space harsh radiation environment. Proposed paper will successively deal with: 1) State of the art knowledge of optical fibered Total Ionising Dose (TID) sensitivity, also called RIA effect, for Radiation Induced Attenuation. It will include: + Photo-bleaching effect description, + Study / tests results on dose rate sensitivity for optical fibers, + References to / Extract from European publications. 2) Astrix FOG component on ground testing results, confirming that : + electro-optics devices such as pump laser module and photodiode are not sensitive to TID effects, +carefully designed fibers such as Er-doped fiber and PM fibers can have low RIAs, compatible with MEO and GEO missions. 3) Astrix FOG in flight optical telemetries, demonstrating the lack of sensitivity of the optical chain to the radiative environment. In flight data will cover: + Astrix 200 and 120 equipments, + LEO, MEO and GEO missions, + ON and OFF gyro channels. For information, begin of December 2016 Astrix family experienced more than 1 300 000 cumulated ON hours, and 215 years of radiative environment.