As part of its Command, Control, and Monitoring Technologies development efforts, the Kennedy Space Center is working in partnership with the Johnson Space Center and a commercial partner (Invocon Inc.) to develop a suite of stand-alone Micro-Wireless Instrumentation devices for space applications. This system addresses several major problems facing the United States aviation and space efforts including the following:

• Instrumentation is critical for spacecraft; however, it has been expensive to add instrumentation to the Space Shuttle because of the high integration costs of interfacing with existing Shuttle systems. For example, adding a single sensor may require power and data wiring to be installed from the sensor to a central instrumentation system some distance away. Each zone the wire crosses results in significant labor costs to update drawings, revise existing procedures, and modify Shuttle flight software.
• Wiring on aircraft and spacecraft has been a cause of numerous anomalies and failures. For example, a Space Shuttle wiring short circuit 5 seconds into the flight knocked out computer buses interfacing with two of the three main engines. As an aviation example, the crash of a Swissair MD-11 near Halifax, Nova Scotia, in September 1998 was attributed to wiring damage.
• Wiring adds significant weight to a spacecraft or aircraft (approximately 230 miles of wire per Shuttle, 300 miles per DC-9 airplane). Reducing weight is key to more-efficient and less-expensive air and space travel.

• The Micro-Wireless Temperature Sensor System is a small, self-contained, battery-operated sensor system that measures temperature at a programmable sample rate and transmits the data to a receiver unit in real time.
• The Micro-Strain Gauge Unit is a small, self-contained, battery-operated, two-channel strain measurement system that can be programmed (via radio frequency [RF] link) to wake at a predetermined time or strain level and begin recording strain data. The recorded data can be downloaded via RF at 916-megahertz (MHz) and 1-milliwatt (mW) output power.
• The Micro-Tri-Axial Accelerometer Unit (TAU) is a small, self-contained, battery-operated, three-axis acceleration measurement system that can be programmed (via RF link) to wake at a predetermined time or acceleration load and begin recording data. The recorded data can be downloaded via RF at 916-MHz and 1-mW output power.

Key accomplishments:

• Utilization of the wireless instrumentation system has reduced the cost of adding temporary instrumentation to the Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) by an order of magnitude.
• Inexpensive instrumentation was successfully provided in support of several space missions:
  – Space Shuttle Air Revitalization System (ARS) troubleshooting.
  – Forward Reaction Control System (FRCS) feed line design environments.
  – Recertification of Space Shuttle Main Engine thrust structure.
  – Environmental data for payload customers (Spacehab-Oceaneering Space System [SHOSS] Box, MACH 1).
  – ISS airlock temperatures.
  – ISS Multipurpose Pressurized Logistics Module (MPLM) acceleration monitoring.