High Reliability Tape Recorders for Satellite, Aircraft & Drone Applications

Abstract

A new series of magnetic tape recorders has been developed and flight tested, offering a much higher reliability figure and somewhat improved performance over previous design, especially in terms of long life. Featured is a transport design having only seven moving parts, as compared with three or four times that many in conventional tape recorder mechanisms. Details of this design are described indicating how it is possible to achieve an operating life of 16,000 hours of continuous service in satellite applications. A comparable electronic advance has been in digital record-reproduce techniques where Borg-Warner Controls engineers have developed bit dejittering and servo speed control circuitry that makes possible transmission of recorded PCM or other digital data at high data rates with an essentially jitter-free output from reproducer to telemetry transmitter.