The instrument control unit of the PLATO payload: design consolidation following the preliminary design review by ESA

Author(s)
R. Cosentino, Mauro Focardi, Stefano Pezzuto, G. Giusi, Emanuele Galli, Manuel Güdel, Franz Kerschbaum, Roland Ottensamer, Armin Luntzer, Dominik Loidolt, Anna Maria Di Giorgio, Scige Liu, Alessio Traficante, David Biondi, Johann Hasiba, Karl Hofmann, Harald Jeszenszky, G. Laky, Harald Ottacher, Michael Steinberger, Manfred B. Steller, Jorge Tonfat, Robert Wallner, Sonja Neukirchner, Mario Leichtfried, Carlo Del Vecchio Bianco, L. Serafini, Devitt Dini, Luca Pilato, Luca Toscano, Valfredo Zolesi
Abstract

PLATO is an M-class mission (M3) of the European Space Agency (ESA) whose launch is scheduled in 2026. The main aim of the mission is the detection and characterization of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting around bright solar-type star. The payload consists of 26 small telescopes: 24 "normal" cameras and 2 "fast" cameras. The huge amount of data produced by the PLATO telescopes is acquired and processed on-board by the Data Processing System (DPS) made up by various processing electronic units. The DPS of the PLATO instrument comprises the Normal and Fast DPUs (Data Processing Units) and a single ICU (Instrument Control Unit), are data routed through a SpaceWire network. The topic of this paper is the description of the architecture of the ICU and its role within the DPS, the status of the Avionic Validation Model (AVM) testing at the end of the Unit Preliminary Design Review (UPDR) performed by ESA and the results of the test of the first engineering model.

Organisation(s)
Department of Astrophysics
External organisation(s)
Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali , INAF - Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, Kayser Italia Srl, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW)
No. of pages
11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2562003
Publication date
12-2020
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103003 Astronomy, 103004 Astrophysics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Condensed Matter Physics, Applied Mathematics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Science Applications
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/1f22d273-3173-44e4-80aa-1b1069501359