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Over time, inertial guidance systems for rockets have incorporated simpler, cheaper, lighter, and more reliable components, as well as concepts such as ring-laser gyros and strapdown technology in which there is no inertial platform required to maintain a fixed position in space. In contrast, the latest U.S. ICBM inertial guidance system is the Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere (AIRS), used on the Peacekeeper missile. It is probably the most accurate inertial measurement unit ever developed and manufactured. The inertial measurement units used on earlier ballistic missiles used an inertial platform mounted on a set of gimbaled axis frames. The AIRS, on the other hand, consists of a beryllium sphere floating in a fluorocarbon fluid within an outer shell, with no gimbals or bearings at all, housing highly accurate gyros and accelerometers. The AIRS is complex, difficult to manufacture, and very expensive.
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