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Aurora avionics architecture system definition
Avionics equipment represents the brain and nervous system of a spacecraft and is critically important to the mission success. In the past, space avionics were rather mission-oriented, involving new developments for each new mission. This led to increasingly high costs and a lack of heritage exploitation from one mission to another.
Reuse of space qualified systems and common architecture design would greatly increase reliability. As the Aurora Exploration Programme encompasses many missions that are primarily focused on exploration, there is a high potential for a recurrent use of open spacecraft avionics architecture within a reasonable timeframe.
Main objectives of this activity consist of the definition of Aurora avionics reference architecture, suitable to support different exploration missions, up to the generation of preliminary design specifications. This work is partly based upon ongoing developments regarding the avionics of the Bepi Colombo mission which embeds a highly integrated control and data system. Not only the hardware may be recurrent but the software has also to be considered.
In addition, this activity aims at implementing communication standards and standard application layer services for data handling interfaces that ease the flexibility of the application software between missions. Architecture trade-off and design implementation shall be supported by analysis, simulation and breadboarding. Preliminary characterisation (physical and reliability budgets) of Aurora mission avionics is also addressed.
Avionics is accordingly one of the technologies for which development rises the steepest. It is therefore very useful to anticipate evolution and develop generic tools and architectures allowing easier upgrades for future missions.
| Start |
Expected or actual duration | Status | Prime contractor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan '03 | 32 months | Completed |
Alcatel Space/ EADS Astrium |
Executive Summaries
Download the Aurora avionics architecture Executive Summary (PDF file - 618 KB) »»