International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The international space community, including National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA), Japanese National Space Agency (NASDA) and others, are committed to using the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) recommendations for low earth orbiting satellites. With the advent of the CCSDS standards and the availability of direct broadcast data from a number of current and future spacecraft, a large number of users could have access to earth science data. However, to allow for the largest possible user base, the cost of processing this data must be as low as possible. By utilizing Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC), pipelined data processing, and advanced software development technology and tools, highly integrated CCSDS data processing can be attained in a single desktop system. This paper describes a prototype desktop system based on the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus that performs CCSDS standard frame synchronization, bit transition density decoding, Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC) error checking, Reed-Solomon decoding, data unit sorting, packet extraction, annotation and other CCSDS service processing. Also discussed is software technology used to increase the flexibility and usability of the desktop system. The reproduction cost for the system described is less than 1/8th the current cost of commercially available CCSDS data processing systems.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 30-November 02, 1995 / Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada / OSC is presently developing a high-rate telemetry collection and formatting component for NASA's EOS-AM1 spacecraft. This device, called the Science Formatting Equipment, is capable of collecting data at aggregate rates exceeding 130 Mbps. The collected data is formatted into CCSDS compatible data structures, error coded, and then routed either to a downlink output or to a recording device at data rates up to 150 Mbps. This paper serves as a brief introduction to this component.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / A traditional Front-end Processor (FEP) with local RAID storage can limit the operational throughput of a high-rate telemetry ground station. The Front-end processor must perform pass processing (frame synchronization, decoding, routing, and storage), post-pass processing (level-zero processing), and tape archiving. A typical fifteen minute high-rate satellite pass can produce data files of 10 to 20 GB. The FEP may require up to 2 hours to perform the post-pass processing and tape archiving functions for these size files. During this time, it is not available to support real-time pass operations. Honeywell faced this problem in the design of the data management system for the DataLynx ä* ground stations. Avtec Systems, Inc. and Honeywell worked together to develop a data management system that utilizes a Storage Area Network (SAN) in conjunction with multiple High-speed Front-end Processors (HSFEP) for Pass Processing (PFEP), multiple HSFEPs for Post-pass Processing (PPFEP), and a dedicated Tape Archive server. A SAN consists of a high-capacity, high-bandwidth shared RAID that is connected to multiple nodes using 1 Gbps Fibre Channel interfaces. All of the HSFEPs as well as the Tape Archive server have direct access to the shared RAID via a Fibre Channel network. The SAN supports simultaneous read/write transfers between the nodes at aggregate rates up to 120 Mbytes/sec. With the Storage Area Network approach, the High-Speed Front-end Processors can quickly transfer the data captured during a pass to the shared RAID for post-processing and tape archiving so that they are available to support another satellite pass. This paper will discuss the architecture of the Storage Area Network and how it optimizes ground station data management in a high-rate environment.