Space Launch System (SLS) data acquisition and sensor system for human space flight

The Boeing Company is designing, developing and manufacturing the Core Stage and Avionics for NASA´s heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which will support missions beyond low earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo days. On the SLS vehicle many sensors are selected and used to provide critical information for testing, ground operations, and vehicle flight environments. Appropriate data acquisition systems that can interface and process the selected sensors is important to the success of the program. In this program, multiple data acquisition systems are used to interface with sensors at various development stages of the SLS vehicle, and at different sensor criticality levels. These phased configurations of data acquisition classes and complexity range from gathering sensor data during system level testing at Stennis Space Center (SSC), to transmitting flight information after liftoff at the Kennedy Space Center. One challenge that engineers are faced with pertains to how the data acquisition system is defined prior to understanding the quantity and type of sensors required for the application. This paper focuses mainly on the SLS flight system and provides a general overview of the system architecture. The paper also addresses the strategy used to define the data acquisition system, along with the methodology for selecting data acquisition cards that fit with the application.