The Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey was selected as M4 mission in the ESA Cosmic Vision programme. This mission will study the chemical composition of exoplanetary atmospheres via high resolution, multi-wavelength spectroscopy with high photometric precision. These tasks demand highly stable pointing during operation, which is provided by a dedicated Fine Guiding Sensor (FGS). The FGS uses two MCT detectors operating in 0.6-1.95μm range. The instrument provides target identification and centroid measurements to the spacecraft forming a closed loop in the guiding. In addition, the FGS detectors are also used for science including photometric and spectral windows. Our instrument contains it own Data Processing Unit (DPU). This is a dual core LEON-based computer running the Instrument Application Software (IASW). The software implements a large number of ECSS services to fulfill the various operating needs. The mission-specific modes cover target acquisition and tracking tasks, processing of the photometric and spectral windows as well as various calibration modes. Aside from that, the thermal control is also handled by the FGS software. The science data need to be compressed in a lossless manner. In this respect we build upon our experiences gathered in our contributions to the ESA missions Herschel and Cheops. While the science data processing has only soft real-timing needs, the centroiding is critical to run and provide results as fast as possible. We present the architectural design of the software particularly highlighting the low-level software adaptations needed to support the high demands from the centroid timing. The presented overview will cover the current development status of the IASW with a detailed look at the design and expected performance of the algorithms. Furthermore, we will present our development and testing workflow, which is built upon our own EGSE software.
KEYWORDS: Software development, Electronics, Space operations, X-ray imaging, Satellite imaging, Satellites, Solar processes, Magnetism, Digital signal processing, Operating systems
Instrument control and data handling are critical aspects of every space mission, taken care of by flight software. We are implementing the instrument application software (IASW) for the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI), one of four science instruments onboard the SMILE satellite - an ESA/CAS mission currently in development with the goal to study the interface between the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field. Our IASW runs on the digital processing unit of the instrument and can be essentially divided into three components. While the basic SW as the low-level layer comprises the operating system and drivers (e.g., for the SpaceWire connectors), the application SW provides all high-level services for the instrument, and the data pool facilitates visibility and control over the software. The main functions of the IASW include commanding of the detector front-end electronics and operation of the radiation shutter electronics, telemetry data compression, housekeeping management and storage, as well as maintenance of general instrument health. Furthermore, the software shall be able to perform (to some extent autonomous) fault detection, isolation and recovery. The IASW is mode driven, i.e. it operates several state machines and provides algorithms and procedures to maintain instrument operation. These parts are implemented via the CORDET framework. Our software development follows a test-driven design - we have therefore also created a suite of tools that facilitate interaction with flight software, speed up the process of test generation and verification, and provide a modular environment comprising actual hardware and simulator components.
KEYWORDS: Exoplanets, Software development, Control systems, Target recognition, Satellites, Space telescopes, Photometry, Stars, Space operations, Data processing
CHEOPS, the Characterizing Exoplanets Satellite, is a Swiss-led ESA-S mission carrying out ultra-high precision photometry providing radii of transiting exoplanets. We have developed the Instrument Flight Software, which controls the instrument and processes the science data in real-time. The software implements over 100 ECSS TM/TC services and several state machines, with data processing tasks ranging from target star recognition, centroiding, on-board data reduction and compression to thermal control and FDIR. The flight hardware is based on the dual-core Leon3 processor. We present the approach that we took towards specification, design, implementation and qualification, then talk about the lessons learned especially during the commissioning.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Picture Archiving and Communication System, Data compression, Digital signal processing, Photometry, Data processing, Space operations, Spectroscopy, Signal processing, Space observatories
This paper describes the design and implementation of the on-board data compression and reduction software for the HERSCHEL/PACS mission (see also A. Poglitsch et al. in this conference) of the European Space Agency (ESA). Lead by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestric Physics (MPE) in Garching, Austrian scientists and software engineers participate in the development of the on-board software for the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS). The novel detectors' high data rates in addition to the distant spacecraft orbit force us to carry out irreversible reduction steps that are normally done on ground and to use highly specialized compression algorithms for lossless compression of the reduced science and the header data.
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