Custom servo inclinometers deliver precision performance throughout testing of new Thruster Orientation Mechanism for satellite platforms
London, UK, 27 March 2012 – Sherborne Sensors, a global leader in the design, development and manufacture of sensors for military, aerospace and industrial applications, has helped RUAG Space, Europe’s largest independent supplier of space technology, to complete life test qualification of its innovative satellite Thruster Orientation Mechanism (TOM). Sherborne Sensors supplied a special variant of its LSI Servo Inclinometer to deliver precision performance throughout three months of rigorous testing under extreme temperature and thermal vacuum conditions.

Pointing mechanisms and electrical propulsion (EP) thrusters are used by commercial satellites for moving from launch orbit into their real orbit and to perform micro-positioning manoeuvres. RUAG’s new TOM simplifies the overall design of a satellite by having two TOMs instead of the eight...