This week was my first meeting with Ian as my official supervisor. Since the formal project proposal is due in two weeks, we’ve focused on what should go into it.
The overall framing of the project goes a bit like that so far:
- High Altitude Balloons allow cheap-ish high-altitude research.
- Single-purpose designs require CompSci knowledge and re-writing software that’s nearly identical to all missions.
- Satellite industry revolves around the use of a bus-payload model where missions are based on standard platforms + custom payloads plugged on.
- Applying the same model to High-Altitude balloons could make missions more accessible, both in terms of price and knowledge required.
The literature review is well underway. I’ve found papers describing communication systems used in multi-million-dollar satellite buses and on students cubesats. The papers from CCSDS are a good example of packet and frame design for high latency, low reliability data links.