Cubesat activities

Since a number of years the On-Board Computers and Data-Handling Section (TEC-EDD) has been heavily involved in supporting activities related to CubeSats, in many different areas. The core focus has been in supporting ongoing Cubesat projects and R&D activities, and in particular:

• Participation in reviews and ad-hoc support related to Industrial CubeSats,
• Support to students involved in University CubeSat activities,
• Technical Oversight to R&D activities aiming at developing D&H subsystems, but also CubeSat demonstrators. Examples are the Myriad 2 based A.I. board, a Zynq7000-based OBC etc.
• Participation in activities related to introducing reliable COTS devices into the CubeSat design process.

In addition, to propagate the knowledge to the younger generation, senior TEC-EDD members have been involved in providing lectures under the scope of the ESA Academy, also related to the Fly Your Satellite program.

Another important aspect of CubeSat activates in TEC-EDD is capability (i.e. with proper lab/software) to do Hands-On Activities. Sample hands-on activities in TEC-EDD have been  the following:

CHIMERA

• CHIMERA was a multi-disciplinary experiment done in cooperation with the Flight Software Systems section (TEC-SWF), the Radiation Hardness Assurance and Components Analysis section (TEC-QEC) and the Engineering Services section (TEC-MXE) in ESTEC. The goal of the experiment was to test COTS memory technologies in space. The board (in different variants) was launched on the GOMX-4B satellite and to the ISS. New launch opportunities are planned.

The TEC-EDD section has also been involved in developments for the Ice Cube Facility on board the ISS (provided by Space Application Services). In 2019 a CHIMERA board was delivered for integration within the Ice Cube facility (from ESA Software Product Assurance section). Since then, progress has continued by procuring an ICE Cube Control Unit, together with a Mechanical Box, allowing delivery of a full ICE Cube. This means that an ICE Cube fully developed within the TEC-ED Division could eventually be deployed on the ISS.

GR716-based Cubesat Controller

• GR716-based Board (microcontroller board) that can be used as a generic Platform OBC or Payload Controller. The board was designed by TEC-EDD YGT (Karl Emil Sandvik Bohne) and is aimed at increasing the quality of CubeSat OBC designs.

The Engineering Model (EM) is being testing in the ESA Avionics Laboratory.

Cubesat FlatSat in ESA Avioniccs Lab

The latest addition to ESA Avionics Lab is a CubeSat FlatSat, procured by the Space Inventor company. The testbed will consist of all essential subsystems and will allow executing many different test-cases for the whole platform. Although the FlatSat is being procured by OBC-DH section for the Avionics Laboratory, the facility will be open for any cooperation with other groups.