First Flight Experiment with the NERVA-1 Inertial Platform

Abstract

The guidance system of the NERVA small space launcher is based on the six degrees-of-freedom information delivered by an inertial platform. Due to the main scope of the project sponsored by the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports to build a cost-effective space launcher, the inertial platform was built with extensive use of on-the-shelf, low cost inertial sensors and equipment. Concerns regarding the behavior and reliability of the sensing block were solved during the first flight experiment in June 2010, on-board the military, unguided drone missile RT-759-01 NERVA-1 and the results are described. The behavior of the electronics under the dynamical loads of the rocket flight, involving overloads of more than 20 g-s and the level of vibration during the real flight was the focus of the flight test, the first ever performed in Romania. The data were broadcast through a eight channel telemetry chain and received on the ground in two different locations for reliability enhancement. The data acquisition performed very well and supplied the basis for further development of the more accurate orbital injection guidance system of the NERVA launcher of small satellites in LEO.