Contact:
Jody Gambles (505) 272-7049
Chris Burroughs (505) 277-1816
UNM MICRO-CHIP AT HEART OF HUBBLE UPGRADE
A micro-chip designed at the University of New Mexico's Microelectronics Research Center is at the heart of an upgrade unit being installed on the Hubble Space Telescope next week.
The current mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery, which was launched Feb. 11, includes replacement of an existing Engineering Science Tape Recorder with a Solid State Recorder containing the UNM chip. Astronauts are scheduled to make the exchange Sunday, Feb. 16 during the third spacewalk of the mission.
"We are thrilled to have a role in this mission that will help improve the information NASA receives from the Hubble," said Jody Gambles, research assistant professor at the Microelectronic Research Center who designed the chip.
Gambles' chip encodes data as it is stored into the Solid State Recorder and then decodes the information as it is taken out to provide error detection and correction capabilities. Without the UNM chip, the data stored in the recorder could be corrupted due to the effect of ionizing radiation from the space environment on the computer memory chips. --MORE-- Chip -- P.2
"This chip provides two-fold protection against the effects of space radiation by correcting errors in the memory chips and through the patented circuit design and layout techniques developed at our center under NASA sponsorship," Gambles added.
The Solid State Recorder, containing the UNM chip, will result in a significant improvement to the quality of information relayed to earth from the Hubble because it has a larger capacity and flexibility for science data storage than the older Science Tape Recorder it replaced.
This is the third UNM chip to be used in a NASA space mission in a little over a year. Two others developed at the Microelectronics Research Center, including one designed by Gambles, were launched from Cape Canaveral in December, 1995 as part of a multi-year NASA exploration mission. The Microelectronics Research Center has operated under a NASA Space Engineering Research Grant for the past nine years.
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