Speaker
Mr
Liao Chi-Ting
(Graduate Institute of Space Science, National Central University, Taiwan)
Description
IDEASSat (Ionosphere Dynamics Exploration and Attitude Subsystem Satellite) or INSPIRESat-2, is a 3U CubeSat mission developed by National Central University, Taiwan, in collaboration with partners in the INSPIRE consortium. It carries the Compact Ionosphere Probe (CIP) to measure and study ionospheric irregularities. The main functions of our communications (COMM) subsystem is to downlink the science data from CIP and the beacon housekeeping data of our satellite. We split the COMM subsystem to two parts to fulfill these requirements, the UHF and S-band subsystems. In this report, we present the analysis and design of our COMM subsystem.
The UHF transceiver of IDEASSat is used to transmit beacon data, receive commands from our ground stations, and serve as a backup of the S-band communications subsystem. We have selected the Space Quest TRX-U as our transceiver using amateur radio UHF frequencies. We have performed test and analyses for access time, link budget, monopole antenna performance, and TRX-U functional tests. The main VHF/UHF ground station is located at NCU and has already been used to receive beacon data from other satellites.
Due to the higher data rate requirement of CIP, S-band is more suitable than UHF frequencies for downloading science data. We chose the CPUT STX as the satellite S-band transmitter. The S-band ground station will use commercial off the shelf (COTS) components including a software defined radio (SDR), dish antenna, rotator, and amplifier. Link budget and noise temperature analysis has already been performed, and we are currently adapting a software defined ratio (SDR) for use as a transceiver and for signal processing.
Summary
Chi-Ting Liaoa,b, Loren Changa,b, Yi Duanna,b, Tzu-Ya Daia,b, Wei-Hao Luoa,b
Primary author
Mr
Liao Chi-Ting
(Graduate Institute of Space Science, National Central University, Taiwan)
Co-author
Prof.
Loren Chang
(National Central University)
