The cosmic “Dark Ages” is the cosmic era between the epochs of recombination of cosmic microwave background and the formation of the first stars. The only signal from this epoch is from neutral hydrogen, which could represent one of the richest data sets in cosmology. In order to extract this data, NASA/JPL has proposed a rover mission to the farside of the moon to deploy several radio arrays. Here the arrays would gather data undisturbed by human interference. This thesis examines the possibility of using photovoltaic and electric batteries as an energy solution for a rover on the moon. The requirement for such a system to survive on the moon is discussed in a literature study. A proof of concept simulation using a Simulink model has also been done. The thesis concludes that a rover can deploy the radio array using solar energy. It would be able to hibernate through the night using radioisotope heating. It would need to wait for its batteries to charge before each night. / I kosmologi kallas epoken mellan “rekombinationen till väte” och bildandet av de första stjärnorna för “den mörka tidsåldern”. Från denna tid finns endast spår i form av strålning från neutralt väte. Denna strålning kan enligt astronomer vara en viktigare källa till data om universums uppkomst än den kosmiska mikrovågsstrålningen. Därför arbetar NASA/JPL med att hitta metoder att observera denna rika källa till data. Den mest använda metoden är att använda lågfrekventa radioteleskop för att observera strålning med våglängder mellan 3-30 m och frekvenser mellan 10-100 Mhz. Ett stort problem med så kort strålning är den lätt störs ut av mänsklig påverkan och andra radiokällor, tillexempel solen. Ett sätt att undvika antropogen störning är att bygga ett radioteleskop på månens baksida. Eftersom månen är i en låst bana runt jorden vänder den alltid samma sida bort från planeten. Därför är platsen alltid i radioskugga från jorden ochstörs inte av mänsklighetens radiotrafik. JPL har lång erfarenhet av användandet av robotfarkoster för att utforska himlakroppar. År 2030 vill de sända en så kallad rover för att upprätta en grupp radioteleskop på månen med syftet att införskaffa data om “den mörka tidsåldern.” Högskolan i Halmstad erbjuder sedan 2013 studenter möjligheten att skriva sitt examensarbete i samarbete med NASA/JPL om konstruktionen av denna rover. Detta arbete har ämnat finna en lösning på rovens energiförsörjning genom att använda solceller och batterier. Slutsatsen har varit att det är möjligt att driva en rover på månen med solceller samt batterier. Ett krav är att rovern värms med radioisotoperunder natten för att minska energianvändningen.

In this thesis we have looked at the possibility of using a rover for deployment oflunar interferometers on the far side of the Moon. This project was made togetherwith two other groups from the mechanical engineering program at HalmstadUniversity. The project was divided into three units and we had the mainresponsibility for the design of the chassis.The goal of this project is to create a better understanding of the origin of the universeand how it still to this day keeps changing. This is believed to be achievable by usinglunar interferometers that will collect data in form of cosmic microwaves from outerspace. The lunar interferometers will be placed at the far side of the Moon since thisis the only site in solar system that is shielded from human-generated interference.The work was completed in collaboration with JPL and NASA, which are worldleading designers and manufacturers of space-related products.

The CubeSat standard sprang from the desire to create a satellite standard that would open the doors for universities and other lower budget research institutions by making it more feasible to get their work into space. Since then, many other institutions and industries have been adopting variations on the standard for their own use. As more people are seeking out to use the CubeSat standard as their main bus, the standards and practices of the community have grown and expanded and with this growth, new challenges have been created. One such challenge is the bandwidth limitation in the RF-downlink. When carrying payloads requiring what might seem to be a relatively small (science data) bandwidth requirement (on the order of thousands of bps), the RF-link to ground is overloaded. Many approaches in the past have been put forth to help alleviate this issue, unfortunately, none have been fully adopted. This paper presents a solution that takes advantage of new technology yet to be fully exploited in space applications. The key to the solution lies in removing the bandwidth requirements by enabling onboard post-data processing and compression. In order to achieve the high computational needs, while minimizing power consumption, a Xilinx Zynq-7000 SoC is used, creating a highly-programmable, open integration device. This report outlines the design, fabrication and testing of this solution. The completion of the Zynq Processing System CubeSat Science Instrument Interface Electronics Board (or ZPS-Board), ultimately demonstrates the feasibility of this solution. Additionally, this research is funded by NASA’s JPL, with secondary motives for the creating of a space application Zynq-7000 SoC based product. Upon successful completion of the ZPS-Board, the product creates a platform for JPL to perform environmental testing in order to study the effects and performance characteristics of the Zynq in space applications.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / This paper describes the new Telemetry Processor Hardware (TPH) that Avtec Systems has developed for the Deep Space Network (DSN) Telemetry Processor (TLP) system. Avtec is providing the Telemetry Processor Hardware to RTLogic! for integration into the Telemetry Processor system. The Deep Space Network (DSN) is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions for exploration of the solar system and the universe. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the DSN for NASA. The TLP system provides the capability to acquire, process, decode and distribute deep space probe and Earth orbiter telemetry data. The new TLP systems will be deployed at each of the three deep-space communications facilities placed approximately 120 degrees apart around the world: at Goldstone, California; near Madrid, Spain; and near Canberra, Australia. The Telemetry Processor Hardware (TPH) supports both CCSDS and TDM telemetry data formats. The TPH performs the following processing steps: soft-symbol input selection and measurement; convolutional decoding; routing to external decoders; time tagging; frame synchronization; derandomization; and Reed-Solomon decoding. The TPH consists of a VME Viterbi Decoder/MCD III Interface board (VM-7001) and a PCI-mezzanine Frame Synchronizer/Reed-Solomon Decoder (PMC- 6130-J) board. The new Telemetry Processor Hardware is implemented using the latest Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology to provide the density and speed to meet the current requirements as well as the flexibility to accommodate processing enhancements in the future.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / As we adopt and implement the doctrines of reengineering, we at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are asked to make a giant leap in how we think of and design SpaceCraft. We call what we are doing a revolution, since we are not “evolving” to the next step in our activity, but literally leaping beyond it. This is fully in concert with the concepts of reengineering, in that areas that need to be changed are indeed literally invented anew. To be successful, JPL and its industry partners, must perfect processes, techniques and methods that allow them to work together at all levels of the SpaceCraft development cycle. If all other parts of the discipline have moved on and changed, but a key portion remains locked in a time warp of yesterday, we will not be able to reach our desired goal. At the present time change is occurring all over JPL, and it is our intent to describe how it applies to areas where prototype, or one of a kind hardware are fabricated, and how these areas might look when new approaches to doing business are applied. Since all activities in an organization must attain similar levels of expertise or be in danger of hampering the entire process, the issues of Packaging Engineering, Manufactureability, and fabrication become key items.

abstract: Readout Integrated Circuits(ROICs) are important components of infrared(IR) imag ing systems. Performance of ROICs affect the quality of images obtained from IR imaging systems. Contemporary infrared imaging applications demand ROICs that can support large dynamic range, high frame rate, high output data rate, at low cost, size and power. Some of these applications are military surveillance, remote sensing in space and earth science missions and medical diagnosis. This work focuses on developing a ROIC unit cell prototype for National Aeronautics and Space Ad ministration(NASA), Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s(JPL’s) space applications. These space applications also demand high sensitivity, longer integration times(large well capacity), wide operating temperature range, wide input current range and immunity to radiation events such as Single Event Latchup(SEL). This work proposes a digital ROIC(DROIC) unit cell prototype of 30ux30u size, to be used mainly with NASA JPL’s High Operating Temperature Barrier Infrared Detectors(HOT BIRDs). Current state of the art DROICs achieve a dynamic range of 16 bits using advanced 65-90nm CMOS processes which adds a lot of cost overhead. The DROIC pixel proposed in this work uses a low cost 180nm CMOS process and supports a dynamic range of 20 bits operating at a low frame rate of 100 frames per second(fps), and a dynamic range of 12 bits operating at a high frame rate of 5kfps. The total electron well capacity of this DROIC pixel is 1.27 billion electrons, enabling integration times as long as 10ms, to achieve better dynamic range. The DROIC unit cell uses an in-pixel 12-bit coarse ADC and an external 8-bit DAC based fine ADC. The proposed DROIC uses layout techniques that make it immune to radiation up to 300krad(Si) of total ionizing dose(TID) and single event latch-up(SEL). It also has a wide input current range from 10pA to 1uA and supports detectors operating from Short-wave infrared (SWIR) to longwave infrared (LWIR) regions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2019

A three-rotational degree of freedom attitude control system has been developed for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s INSPIRE Project by the Texas Spacecraft Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. Using 3D plastic printing manufacturing techniques, a cold gas thruster system was created in order to detumble and maintain the attitude of two 3U CubeSats traveling through interplanetary space. A total of four thruster units were produced, including two engineering designs and two flight units. The units feature embedded sensors and millisecond level thrust control while using an inert, commercially-available refrigerant as a propellant. The thrust, minimum impulse bit, and specific impulse performance of the cold gas units was characterized using a ballistic pendulum test stand within a microtorr vacuum chamber. A heating element was used to change the temperature conditions of the propellant and determine the relationship between temperature and performance. The flight units were delivered in January of 2014 and the INSPIRE satellites are expected to launch in the upcoming year. / text

Space-based telescopes are limit by the payload requirements of existing launch vehicles. Thus, despite distinct advantages the resolution of terrestrial telescopes exceeds space-based telescopes due to larger size and powerful adaptive optics. To overcome payload limitations, a primary mirror technology that is lighter in weight, but no less effective, is required. As this will result in new structural conditions, new approaches to maintaining the optical shape (figure) of the mirror will also be required. This thesis culminates work at the Georgia Institute of Technology in modelling a hexagonal thin-shell deformation mirror manipulated by an adaptive truss. This research specifically examines the feasibility of a surface parallel actuated (SPA) thin-shell CuZr deformable mirror (DM) as an alternative to a typical surface normal actuated (SNA) based mirror. It is believed that by using a thin-shell mirror (100 m or less in thickness) with a light weight substrate, such as a truss, that a significant weight-savings will occur, thus enabling larger space based telescopes. This thesis advances the SPA DM concept by 1) creating a representative model, 2) developing design evaluation methods, 3) evaluating the FEA simulated response of the deformable mirror over Zernike error modes, 4) evaluating the FEA simulated response to select thermal loads, and 5) evaluating the ability of the DM to remove thermal error, and the forces required to do so. Finally, it is concluded that overall the SPA DM concept is feasible.