Background
This internal project was originally entitled “Technology Validation for the Instrument Control Electronics (ICE) Subsystem Onboard the Auroral Reconstruction CubeSwarm (ARCS) Phase A MIDEX Mission.” While the ARCS project was chosen as one of five MIDEX missions in a down select, it was not the final selection. Despite this, this IR&D project was continued to complete the Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL 6) qualification of the CubeSat Instrument Control Electronics (ICE). With this new goal, the project was renamed accordingly. The ICE system is required as an interface between commercially available CubeSat platforms and science instruments. This is due to the inability of these commercial platforms to directly control science instruments or to handle, and often post process, large amounts of data that they produce. Since SwRI had not built this specific subsystem, the decision was made to complete it up to the Engineering Model level and qualify it to TRL 6. The ICE system is essentially a payload controller for a CubeSat and will be proposal ready at the end of its qualification.
Approach
The approach was simply to design, fabricate, and test an Engineering Model (EM) or equivalently a Qualification Model (QM). The result intended to be a TRL 6 Instrument Control unit that could be proposed on future CubeSats involving commercially available CubeSat platforms.
Due to unavailability of pick and place equipment due to higher priority flight projects, we have revised our work packages to perform hand-soldering for all discrete components. Board population will be completed within the next two weeks. This is followed by bench testing, unit integration and finally vibration and thermal-vacuum testing. For the environmental tests, we will use procedures written for another project of the same risk class. Vibration levels are GEVS so they will remain the same and the temperatures for TVAC will be adjusted to represent a CubeSat in low Earth orbit.
Accomplishments
- The hardware fabrication of the ICE unit is complete and includes:
- the electronics enclosure,
- a control and data handling (C&DH) board,
- a low voltage power supply (LVPS) board,
- a high voltage power supply (HVPS) board, (not included in final qualification)
- a communications (COM) board, and
- a backplane (BP) board.
Testing for all five boards and the integrated unit are complete. An automated Aliveness Test has been generated and validated in the form of a script run on a PC and fed into the FPGA of the unit.
The remaining testing will be completed during October 2024:
- Integrated Aliveness Test
- Disassembly of the unit.
- Stake and coat the boards in preparation of vibration testing.
- Reintegrate the unit.
- Pre-VIBE Aliveness Test
- Vibration Testing (VIBE)
- Post-VIBE Aliveness Test
- Thermal Vacuum Test (TVAC)
- HOT Aliveness Test
- COLD Aliveness Test
- Ambient (and final) Aliveness Test
- Unit is Qualified to TRL 6
Completion of this project, along with a final report, is expected November 1, 2024.