Session
Technical Session I: Mission Payloads and their Applications
Abstract
The Xilinx Virtex-5QV (V5QV) FPGA is targeted as the rad-hard processor for the NASA Decadal Survey Aerosol- Cloud-Ecosystem (ACE) mission’s Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (MSPI) instrument, currently under development at JPL. With funding from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), JPL is demonstrating a data processing algorithm that reduces the output data rate from MSPI’s 9 multi-angle cameras by more than 200x. This real-time on-board processing (OBP) design, based on least-squares fitting, is implemented on the Virtex-5 FPGA. Another ESTO-funded task called COVE (CubeSat On-board processing Validation Experiment) integrates the MSPI OBP algorithm on the V5QV FPGA as a JPL-provided payload to the University of Michigan’s M-Cubed CubeSat. One goal of the M-Cubed/COVE mission is to gain on-orbit validation of MSPI OBP on the V5QV FPGA thereby advancing the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for the ACE mission. M-Cubed/COVE has been selected for launch on the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission on October 25, 2011. This paper presents the COVE payload architecture on the M-Cubed CubeSat and explores how the capabilities of this Virtex-5 FPGA-based processing platform could enable future CubeSat missions.
Presentation Slides
The COVE Payload – A Reconfigurable FPGA-Based Processor for CubeSats
The Xilinx Virtex-5QV (V5QV) FPGA is targeted as the rad-hard processor for the NASA Decadal Survey Aerosol- Cloud-Ecosystem (ACE) mission’s Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (MSPI) instrument, currently under development at JPL. With funding from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), JPL is demonstrating a data processing algorithm that reduces the output data rate from MSPI’s 9 multi-angle cameras by more than 200x. This real-time on-board processing (OBP) design, based on least-squares fitting, is implemented on the Virtex-5 FPGA. Another ESTO-funded task called COVE (CubeSat On-board processing Validation Experiment) integrates the MSPI OBP algorithm on the V5QV FPGA as a JPL-provided payload to the University of Michigan’s M-Cubed CubeSat. One goal of the M-Cubed/COVE mission is to gain on-orbit validation of MSPI OBP on the V5QV FPGA thereby advancing the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for the ACE mission. M-Cubed/COVE has been selected for launch on the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission on October 25, 2011. This paper presents the COVE payload architecture on the M-Cubed CubeSat and explores how the capabilities of this Virtex-5 FPGA-based processing platform could enable future CubeSat missions.
