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Why Ethernet and not SpaceWire? Surely you don't need multiple hundreds of mbit/sec across a cubesat?
by RantyDave 3y ago
Why Ethernet and not SpaceWire? Surely you don't need multiple hundreds of mbit/sec across a cubesat?
- ooterness 3y agoWe continue to use SpaceWire where it's appropriate, and it was one of many options considered in the initial trade-study [1] that led to the creation of SatCat5. Among other things, many Aerospace-built cubesats have a laser communication downlink [2][3] that can reach 250 Mbps and up. It's not hard for raw sensor or video data to saturate a 1 Gbps link, and future missions may even need 10 GbE. [1] https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2020/all2020/174/ https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2020/all2020/174/ [2] https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/aerocube-ocsd https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/aerocube-ocsd [3] https://aerospace.org/article/aerospaces-slingshot-1-demonstrates-pathway-accelerating-space-innovation https://aerospace.org/article/aerospaces-slingshot-1-demonst...
- RantyDave 3y agoI had no idea that laser downlinks were even remotely possible from a cubesat - that's really kinda astonishing. Regarding the other high bandwidth stuff I imagined that "a communication satellite" was more or less a life support machine for a box made by Nokia. CAN is actually kinda cool, should you ever feel like going down a rabbit hole.