OPS-SAT

OPS-SAT is devoted to demonstrating drastically improved mission control capabilities, that will arise when satellites can fly more powerful on-board computers. The satellite is only 30cm high, but it contains an experimental computer ten times more powerful than any current ESA spacecraft.

The robustness of the basic satellite itself will give ESA flight control teams the confidence they need to upload and try out new, innovative control software submitted by experimenters; the satellite can be pushed to its limits but can always be recovered if something goes wrong.

Achieving this level of performance and safety at a low cost is a challenge. To do this, OPS-SAT combines off-the-shelf subsystems typically used with cubesats, the latest terrestrial microelectronics for the on-board computer and the experience ESA has gained in operating satellites for the last 40 years in keeping missions safe.

The result is an open, flying 'laboratory' that will be available for in-orbit demonstration of revolutionary new control systems and software that would be too risky to trial on a 'real' satellite. Over 100 companies and institutions from 17 European countries have registered experimental proposals to fly on OPS-SAT.

The in-orbit laboratory will offer a range of resources, including processors, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), cameras, and an attitude determination and control system, all of which experimenters will be able to exploit for demonstrating new mission and operations concepts.

The OPS-SAT architecture consists of two major parts. The first is the OPS-SAT 'bus', which provides the necessary infrastructure to operate the second part, the payload. However, in this case, once the payload is running it can take over control of the entire satellite while the bus monitors and is ready to take control back at any moment.

The platform consists of an 'Altera Cyclone V SoC' with an ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore and a Cyclone V FPGA. OPS-SAT experimenters will provide bootable images for this processing platform. These images will undergo certain pre-checks before loading to the spacecraft. Power consumption and temperature of the processing core will also be monitored by the on-board computer to provide additional safety mechanisms.