A Smart Sensor Integrated Circuit for NASA's New Millennium Spacecraft

The modern space era can greatly benefit from the rapidly growingmicroelectronics technologies in order to enable the ambitious exploratoryand commercial space endeavors of the new millennium. A smart sensor, analog/digital, integrated circuit, suitable for spacecraft avionics dataacquisition and control is presented. The Remote Input/Output (RIO) device isdeveloped by The Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory, for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to support many oncoming new millenniumspace missions. TRIO—the first version of RIO—is designed to interface totemperature, pressure, total radiation dose sensors, and generally to voltage/current transducers. The microchip includes front-end conditioningcircuitry, an ADC, memory, serial and CPU interface, and a digital port.Furthermore the device is developed to meet extreme space qualification specifications such as radiation effects. This versatile system-on-a-chipdevice is becoming a key enabling technology for new-generation NASA andCommercial spacecraft systems. Missions that are intended to use the TRIOdevice are the: Europa Orbiter, Deep Space 4, Solar Probe, Pluto Express,Mars Sample Return, Stereo, Contour, etc.