This week I’ve worked on refining my research question and looking for papers that support the project better.

Research Question

“What are the advantages, issues and obstacles in designing a generalised intra-payload and long-range communications platform for High-Altitude Balloon scientific missions?”

Literature

  • ECSS Secretariat. 2010. SpaceWire - Remote memory access protocol. European Cooperation for Space Standardization.

    Spacewire as a whole, and the remote memory access protocol are standard used in high-end space probes and satellites to create complete networks between instruments. I would have to design a similar, albeit simpler system for the intra-payload part of the project

  • Hinschelwood et al. 2015. A Raspberry Pi Weather Balloon. Young Scientists Journal (17), pp. 20-24.

    This paper is a report of a high-school Raspberry Pi-based HAB project. The students adopted moderately modular approach – the payloads’ code and the flight software are still fairly tightly coupled. It shows low-power computer platforms are usable as flight computers.

  • Volstad, M. 2011. Internal Data Bus of a Small Student Satellite. Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

    In this paper, the author goes over the design (mostly electronic, but also software-wise) of the internal bus of a CubeSat, over which all payloads communicate with the flight computer.

    Some parts are specific to satellite operations (radiation tolerant design), while others could be used in High-altitude balloon: I2C data bus, reset circuitry to allow the flight computer to isolate a faulty payload.