NASA´s space communications and navigation test bed aboard the international space station

Author

Reinhart, R.C. ; Kacpura, Thomas J. ; Johnson, S.K. ; Lux, J.P.

Author_Institution

NASA John H. Glenn Res. Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

Volume

28

Issue

4

fYear

2013

fDate

Apr-13

Firstpage

4

Lastpage

15

Abstract

The NASA SCaN Test Bed flight experiment payload aboard ISS will enable experimenters the unique opportunity to investigate SDRs, navigation, and networking in the space environment. Comprised of three SDRs from industry partners, CoNNeCT allows experimenters to develop and verify new waveforms compliant with the STRS SDR architecture standard, using verified ground systems and then have those waveforms uploaded to the flight SDRs to assess in situ performance and to better understand operational concepts for SDRs in space. In addition to the SDRs, the reprogrammable avionics software allows application software for on-board networking and routing experiments. The flight system communicates with TDRSS at both S-band and Ka-band and can receive within the GPS L-band for navigation waveform development and experiments.

Keywords

Global Positioning System; aerospace computing; aerospace industry; aerospace testing; avionics; ground support equipment; space communication links; CoNNeCT experiment; GPS L-band; ISS; Ka-band; NASA SCaN test bed flight experiment payload; NASA space communication; S-band; STRS SDR architecture standard; TDRSS; flight communication system; international space station; navigation test bed; navigation waveform development; on-board networking; reprogrammable avionic software; routing experiment; verified ground system; Aerospace control; Field programmable gate arrays; NASA; Payloads; Radio frequency; Software radio; Space vehicles; Telemetry; Transceivers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8985

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MAES.2013.6506824

Filename

6506824