ICE Cube On-board Control Unit

The complete, ready-to-use module for in-orbit experiments on board the International Space Station

OBC based on Microchip SAMV71Q21RT

• Total Ionizing Dose 30 krad

• NAND Flash 2 GiB for scientific data

• NOR Flash (QSPI) 2 MiB for application SW

• SDRAM 2x64 MiB operating memory

• Power consumption <~1 W

• Independent power control and data lanes

Interfaces

• Command and control over Ethernet

• Embedded CAN transceivers

• OBCU-payload interfaces

  • UART

  • GPIO

  • I2C

  • SPI

  • ADC

• Power control and measurement

  • OVP

  • UVP

  • OCP

Software

• C++: Developed using modern C++20 standard and tooling

• ECSS: Production followed guidelines set out in ECSS standards for software development and quality

• PUS: Integrates a command and control link protocol based on ESA’s Packet Utilization Standard ver. C (PUS-C)

• Routing: Routes commands and data between the mission control systems and individual payloads

• Scheduling: Facilitates unattended execution of operations through pre-scheduled commanding

• Storage: Collects any and all telemetry from payloads into a large persistent memory chip

• Extendibility: Provides a template for user-supplied periodically executed code

• Flexibility: The system can be easily adjusted for use with other microcontrollers and operating systems

Available soon

• Co-processor for independent data processing

• Inter-payload routing

• Software ECC protecting data in long-term storage