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Objectives and Applications
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IPS was an ESA-funded and developed technology demonstration system flown in the Spacelab program of NASA, designed and built by former DSS (Dornier Satellitensysteme GmbH - now EADS Astrium GmbH). The objective of IPS was to provide precision instrument pointing and tracking capabilities by establishing an inertially stable base from which stellar, solar, and Earth observations could be made. - Using reaction control thrusters, the Orbiter could rarely maintain pointing accuracies of better than 0.1º, and it often came only within 2º of target pointing. Also, the IPS was able to react much faster than the control system of the much larger Orbiter.
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