GENSO - Call for proposals for new students or teams

GENSO is a software standard which allows each ground station on the network to communicate with non-local spacecraft and share data with the spacecraft controllers via the internet. This will allow for a near global coverage in communication for every educational satellite launched, greatly increasing the return from educational space missions and the opportunities for sending commands to the spacecraft.

The call is open to students and amateur radio enthusiasts from any country, although preference will be given to students from the member countries of the ISEB Agencies, in particular if their participation is well supported by their universities.

The projects outlined below have been identified by current team members as tasks which are distinct enough to be suitable for a university project or thesis, while still forming a valuable addition to the overall GENSO project. Combinations of projects or new, original projects relevant to GENSO may also be proposed.

• Hardware Interface and Local Control
  1. Adding modem support to GMS
  2. Adding rotator support to GMS (AZ & EL 1000 [RC2800] / G-5500 [GS-232B]) (driver)
  3. Adding audio support to GMS
  4. GENSO GROWS Gateway Server (UNISEC preferred)
• Ground Station and Mission Applications - projects related to the Hardware Abstraction Layer
  5. Protocol transcoder
  6. Software Modem
  7. Software Radio
  8. Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) upgrade
• Ground Station and Mission Applications - projects related to the Ground Station Servers and the Mission Control Client
  9. Hardware configuration (graphical drag'n'drop)
  10. Real-time streaming (data/audio/voice)
  11. "Wall plugs" (pass report delivery to user/API)
• Authentication Server
  12. Central Scheduler (optimisation, conflict resolution, knowledge based system)
  13. Redundant Server Clustering
  14. Space Communication Quality Assurance
  15. NAT-Traversal
• User Administration Interfaces
  16. Design of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for GSS and MCC and web interfaces
  17. Implementation of Graphical User Interfaces for GSS and MCC
  18. Implementation of web interfaces (admin & end-users)
• Drivers and Development
  19. Drivers for a specified hardware item
  20. Iterative development and review
• Review and Verification
  21. Simulation Tool
• Performance Modelling and Simulation
  22. Performance analysis / modelling / simulation
• Infrastructure (servers and services)
  23. Help / knowledge forum
• Communication and Public Relations
  24. Communication content
  25. GENSO graphical identity
  26. Teaching exercises
• Legal Matters and Agreements
  27. Investigation of relevant legal matters and drafting of end user agreements
• Ground Station Hardware
  28. Survey and analysis of existing/future modulation techniques

The details on these opportunities can be found on the Call for Proposals PDF under documents.

Proposals and deadline

Expressions of interest should be submitted to genso @ esa.int using the template provided. Prior to submitting a proposal, interested parties may contact the same address with any questions.

The initial deadline for responding to the call is 12 December 2008. After this time, any projects still open or future opportunities that arise will be advertised on the GENSO project website. A separate call for ground stations to test the software is envisaged in early 2009.