S-Band CCSDS compatible transmitter communications layer for CubeSats

Abstract

The Remote sensing and Interference detector with radiomeTry and vegetation Analysis (RITA) is an Earth Observation (EO) payload developed by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) NanoSat Lab, winner of the Second IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge, flying aboard AlainSat-1, a 3U CubeSat from the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) of the United Arab Emirates. RITA hosts three experiments: an L-band Microwave Radiometer (MWR) for soil moisture and sea ice data collection, a LoRa transceiver enabling on-demand experiment execution via ground sensors, and a Near-Infrared (NIR) Hyperspectral Camera for vegetation monitoring and water mapping. To transmit scientific data from the payload to ground stations, RITA employs an S-Band down-link compatible with Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) standards, also used for AlainSat-1’s telemetry and scientific data transmission. Standard communications protocols increase mission success rates and enable interoperability between agencies and future scalability. This work presents the implementation of Processing System (PS) and Programmable Logic (PL) CCSDS compatible S-Band down-link communications for AlainSat-1.

This work was supported in part by the 2nd Student Grand Challenge (SGC) of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (IEEE-GRSS), and in part by the Project ‘‘GENESIS: Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) Environmental and Societal Missions—Subproject Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)’’ funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Investigación (MCIN)/Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI)/10.13039/501100011033 and European Union (EU) Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) ‘‘Una manera de hacer Europa’’ under Grant PID2021-126436OB-C21. The work of G. Gracia-Sola, A. Gonga, L. Contreras-Benito, and K. Osipova was supported by the Predoctoral Program Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR)-Formació d’Investigador (FI) Ajuts Joan Oró of the Secretariat of Universities and Research of the Department of Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain, and European Social Plus Fund under Grant 2024 FI-1 00152, Grant 2022 FI-B 00809, Grant 2023 FI-1 00477, and Grant 2023 FI-1 00239. The work of A. Perez-Portero was supported by the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) Generalitat de Catalunya, for recruitment of early-stage research staff under Grant FISDUR2020/105.

Peer Reviewed

Postprint (published version)