Speaker
Mr
David Stanton
(SSTL)
Description
SSTL have been using CAN bus as their primary method of transferring commands and telemetry around their spacecraft of over a decade. The use of CAN bus is at the heart of their nominal and non-nominal concept of operations. The architecture allows complete access to spacecraft systems by the ground segment independent of the spacecraft onboard computer to allow versatile strategies for anomaly recovery and diagnosis. SSTL are extending their leverage of automobile technology to incorporate "fit for purpose" technologies such as LIN bus and the emerging CAN-FD bus as well as exploiting associated items such as consumer level high reliability parts. This paper will describe how the use of these technologies enables the radical cost and mass savings, as well as hugely increased performance, which are to be introduced into SSTL's new X-series spacecraft range.
