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Are you able to talk about what kind of hardware is on the satellite? I'm curious if it's commodity like the Mars helicopter or something made for the purpose.
by Kye 4y ago
Are you able to talk about what kind of hardware is on the satellite? I'm curious if it's commodity like the Mars helicopter or something made for the purpose.
- Aromasin 4y agoNot OP, so I'm guessing purely on my knowledge of how most of the industry works, but there's likely some sort of FPGA with custom IP at the center, connected to a powerful optical transmitter/receiver. Associated reading can be found here: https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Microelectronics/The_use_of_reprogrammable_FPGAs_in_space https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Techn... https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150009433/downloads/20150009433.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150009433/downloads/20... https://www.fierceelectronics.com/electronics/fpga-enables-high-bandwidth-space-systems-lower-system-cost https://www.fierceelectronics.com/electronics/fpga-enables-h...
- error503 4y agoThe main paper seems to be behind a paywall (rolleyes), but I did find this synopsis that covers the basic approach and hardware: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4406&context=smallsat https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4... It sounds like this test payload was part of a larger CubeSet built by NASA, but the actual datacom components seem pretty much off the shelf (besides the optics). 100Gbps transceivers, an optical mux, and an EDFA - all common in terrestrial telecom - and some IR optics to collimate the beam.