NASA already has a major headache every time it wants to launch an RTG (radioisotope thermal generation) powered vehicle. The outcry is typically, "Oh no! What if the thing explodes on launch and spreads radioactive material all over the place!"
You think they could ever get clearance to launch nuclear explosives?!?
Red Whittaker founded Astrobotic Technology - I don't know why this "article" is written as if he's joining the company. And the company does have long-term aspirations for the moon and the Google X Prize allows it to offset the cost of development, assuming they win, of course.
Then the article goes on to say that the "only remaining problem" is handling very low temperatures - while I'm sure it's definitely a problem, I highly doubt that that's the only thing left to be solved.
Bottom Line: Ignore TFA, just read the Astrobotic blog entry.
Minor disclaimer: Dr. Whittaker was my master's thesis advisor.
Actually, no. This is the IXZ-500/650 that they are talking about, which measures pitch and yaw (rotations about the X and Z axes). The IDG-600 which you link to is the older gyro which measures pitch and roll (rotations about the X/Z) axes.
And as far as getting 3-axes goes, pairing one of Invensense's X/Y dual axis gyros with their single axis Z gyro would give you that in a single plane.
For those saying this is the part in the MotionPlus, it's not. That's using the IDG-600 which the parent talks about.
As the article mentions, this is for apps where you only want pitch/yaw and don't care about roll, as in a typical remote control application where you're waving up/down and left/right.
Is that a joke? Because I'm fairly sure you can't actually see the magnetic states on the media with an optical scanner...
Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol