The Pegasus avionics system design

Author

Steffy, David A.

Author_Institution

Orbital Sci. Corp., Fairfax, VA, USA

fYear

1990

fDate

15-18 Oct 1990

Firstpage

326

Lastpage

332

Abstract

The Pegasus air-launched space booster successfully completed its maiden flight on April 5, 1990. Many recent advances in digital avionics and computer technology simplified the vehicle and its testing. The single-string Pegasus avionics comprise multiple microcontroller-based remote units for controlling actuators, firing thrusters and pyrotechnics, and gathering telemetry arranged in a serial digital star network centered on the VMEBUS flight computer. Flight, aircraft, and test software is in C, with small amounts of FORTH and assembly language. A series of laboratory, simulation, mobile test bed, motor static firing, and captive flight tests verified that the avionics system was ready for free flight

Keywords

C language; aerospace computer control; aerospace computing; aerospace instrumentation; aerospace testing; automatic testing; digital instrumentation; telecontrol; telemetering; C language; FORTH; Pegasus avionics; VMEBUS flight computer; actuators; aerospace instrumentation; air-launched space booster; aircraft control; assembly language; captive flight tests; computer technology; digital avionics; firing thrusters; free flight; mobile test bed; motor static firing; multiple microcontroller-based remote units; pyrotechnics; serial digital star network; simulation; telemetry; test software; Actuators; Aerospace electronics; Aircraft; Assembly; Computer networks; Software testing; Space technology; System testing; Telemetry; Vehicles;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Digital Avionics Systems Conference, 1990. Proceedings., IEEE/AIAA/NASA 9th

Conference_Location

Virginia Beach, VA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/DASC.1990.111309

Filename

111309