COMMERCIAL OFF THE SHELF DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM FOR THE SPACE SHUTTLE SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER PROGRAM

Abstract

The space shuttle has been flying for seventeen years and NASA plans to fly it for many more. To meet the requirement of supporting future flights, NASA has undertaken a Shuttle Upgrades Program to improve various shuttle components. The avionics on the solid rocket booster (SRB) is one of the areas being upgraded. To develop avionics hardware, the environments that they are to encounter during flight must be defined to a higher degree of fidelity than is currently available. This paper describes the effort to determine these environments via the use of a commercial off the shelf data acquisition system.