PACUBE

Based on an existing ASIC/FPGA development for a scientific earth observation instrument the feasibility for implementation on a CubeSat platform shall be investigated.

The ASIC/FPGA implementation (PACO) which was funded within an ESA program, targets the monitoring of reflected microwave signals from GNSS (global navigation satellite s ystem) space vehicles on the earth surface. These reflections are considered to contain important information about earth (oceanic) surface conditions as well as atmospheric shear wind conditions.

The targeted general purpose platform is used for the OPS-SAT mission (without scientific payload on board) currently developed by TU-Graz to demonstrate the suitability of this platform for scientific missions under mission control of ESOC.

The goal of this project is to proof the feasibility of combining these two opportunities to a hardware demonstrator with a twofold scope: On one hand the feasibility of a meaningful scientific mission on a nanosatellite is demonstrated and on the other hand the signal processing core of a combined altimeter and scatterometer is validated on hardware.

Coordinator

RUAG Space GmbH

Project partner

TU Graz - Graz University of Technology

RUAG Space GmbH
Web: www.ruag.com