Calibration of FIBer Bragg gratings for Optical Sensing (FIBOS) for an aerospace application

Fiber Bragg grating Sensors, FBGs, have been widely used as optical sensors for structural health monitoring of different materials. They can be embedded in composite structures or attached on their surface to monitor the entire life cycle of the material or to measure different physical parameters. FIBOS contains two FBGs and will be used to measure temperature and strain during the aerospace mission OPTOS. OPTOS is a picosatellite, designed and manufactured by the Spanish Institute for Aerospace Technology, INTA that will be launched during the summer 2009. The main goal of the mission is to demonstrate the possibility of using some novel technologies for space applications inside a miniaturized space and with big restrictions in terms of mass and power consumption. The paper describes the different units that constitute the FIBOS payload: one tunable laser, two FBGs mounted onto one steel mechanical structure to monitor independently temperature and strain and the processing unit that include all the electronics to control and connect the payload with the DOT of the satellite. Calibration measurements at different temperatures inside a thermalvacuum chamber as well as FIBOS operation during the mission are also presented.