Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 12
Feature Article:
DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2016.150042
Design of Telecommand Software for the Mars Orbiter
Mission
Mayur W. Bhilawe, K. K. Raghunandana, Vijaykumar Pujari, H. S. Vasudevamurthy,
N. Valarmathi, Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO Satellite Center, Bangalore,
Karnataka, India
INTRODUCTION
Mars has always interested the human imagination, like no other
planet. For ages, humans have been speculating about life on Mars.
But, the question still unanswered is whether Mars has a biosphere
or ever had an environment in which life could have evolved and
been sustained.
The Mars Orbiter [1], [2], is a space probe launched on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
[3]. It is ISRO's first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with
an orbiter craft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit, which
has been orbiting Mars since the 24 of September, 2014. With this
mission, ISRO has become the fourth space agency to reach Mars,
after the Soviet space program, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration , and European Space Agency.
The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has many technical challenges considering the critical mission operations and the stringent
requirements on propulsion and other bus systems of the spacecraft. It has been configured to carry out limited study of the Martian atmosphere with five payloads [4] finalized by the Advisory
Committee on Space Sciences. Figure 1 shows the basic structure
of Mars Orbiter spacecraft.
In interplanetary missions where the communication delays are
quite high, it takes a significant amount of time to send commands
and receive the telemetry. Also, interplanetary missions involve
visibility constraints. The round trip delay for a signal in MOM is
up to 40 minutes. MOM involves a communication blackout period when the Sun is between the Earth and the Mars. Also, there
exist communication white-out periods when the Earth is between
the Sun and Mars. Finally, the MOM involves visibility gaps when
the spacecraft goes behind Mars. Also, the interplanetary mission
involves different phases of mission operations during its life, so
Authors' current address: M. W. Bhilawe, K. K. Raghunandana,
V. Pujari, H. S. Vasudevamurthy, N. Valarmathi, Digital Systems
Group, ISRO Satellite Center, Indian Space Research Organization, Bangalore, 560017 India, E-mail: (mayur@isac.gov.in).
Manuscript received March 26, 2015, revised August 30, 2015,
December 14, 2015, and April 10, 2016, and ready for publication April 10, 2016.
Review handled by E. Blasch.
0885-8985/16/$26.00 © 2016 IEEE
12
it requires flexibility and programmability to manage the mission.
Due to visibility constraints and the time delays involved in the
mission, autonomy features are developed in the telecommand
processor (MTcP) software, which reduces command uplinks and
increases the reuse of already uplinked commands.
In this article, the design and development of the MTcP software for the MOM is presented. MTcP software provides autonomy features for thermal management, fault detection, isolation,
and reconfiguration (FDIR), differential time tagged (TT) command execution, configurable command block (CCB) execution,
event based commanding (EBC), on board time tagged (OBT)
command execution, macro time tagged command execution, attitude and orbit control electronics (AOCE) autonomy, 1553B
[5]-[7] data/command transfer and telemetry transfer to AOCE,
and other subsystems. The software also has features like telemetry (TM) auto-changeover, MTcP auto-changeover, remote
programming, telecommand (TC) history transfer to baseband
data handling (BDH), and controlled MTcP reset (protection
from spurious resets). All these functionalities are elaborated
in the subsequent sections. In the MTcP software, some of the
functionalities can be combined and used as it provides linking
feature. The software is successfully flown in MOM [8], [9].
The picture of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft mounted on a payload
adapter in a polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) C-25 is shown
in Figure 2.
Figure 1.
Mars Orbiter Spacecraft basic structure.
IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
AUGUST 2016
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016
No label
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - No label
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - Cover2
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 1
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 2
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 3
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 4
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 5
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 6
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 7
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 8
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 9
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 10
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 11
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 12
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 13
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 14
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 15
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 16
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 17
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 18
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 19
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 20
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 21
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 22
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 23
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 24
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 25
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 26
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 27
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 28
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 29
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 30
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 31
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 32
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 33
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 34
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 35
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 36
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 37
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 38
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 39
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 40
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 41
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 42
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 43
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 44
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 45
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 46
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 47
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - 48
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - Cover3
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine August 2016 - Cover4
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/34-2s
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/34-2
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/34-1
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-12
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-11
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-10
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-09
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-8
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-7
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-5
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-4
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-3
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-2
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/33-1
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-10
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-12
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-9
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-11
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-8
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-7s
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-7
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-6
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-5
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-4
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-3
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-2
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/32-1
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/31-12
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/31-11s
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/31-11
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/31-10
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/31-9
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/31-8
http://www.brightcopy.net/allen/aesm/31-7
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com