Software Defined Radio data processing on board OPS-SAT Space Laboratory
- Paper ID
82617
- authors
- company
Gdansk University of Technology
- country
Poland
- year
2024
- abstract
OPS-SAT Space Lab is a 3 unit cubesat deployed by European Space Agency into Low Earth Orbit. Its goal is to accelerate innovation within operational domain for current and future space missions. The innovation is generated by means of allowing experimenters to run custom software-based experiments on board the spacecraft in a high-velocity, agile manner. The mission provides opportunities within the Software Defined Radio (SDR) Subsystem. After 4 years in orbit, the spacecraft experiences higher drag resulting in orbital decay. As keeping the attitude becomes harder, more and more experiments become harder to run – especially ones related to subsystems like camera and ADCS. The nature of the SDR subsystem provides the mission with a unique opportunity to generate value until the very end of the mission, as it does not require accurate pointing. In order to achieve this, the subsystem requires additional work to streamline its operations. The operational aspect requires finding solutions for safe storage of the captured radio samples on board, efficient downlink to earth and further processing pipelines on ground. Part of the processing can be done on board, but is constrained by the environment of the experimental computer.