Ground Station System Engineering
VEGA has had an active involvement in Ground
Station Systems Engineering for nearly 25 years, providing
expertise and technology systems to ESA, EUMETSAT and also
commercial organisations. This involvement has included Ground
Station Monitoring and Control, development of gateways,
development of ground station simulation systems and specific test
tools.
VEGA has been involved in providing and
configuring monitoring and control systems which have been
installed throughout the European Space Agency’s TT&C ground
station network ESTRACK since 1984.
- Station Computer Mk 2 (STC2) – since 1992,
VEGA was responsible for the development, configuration, deployment
and sustaining engineering of the Station Computer, the central
monitoring and control computer for all ESTRACK ground stations.
Together with the STC, VEGA developed and maintained the Ground
Station M&C Tailoring System, the system that allows
customisation of the monitoring and control function for the
equipment/subsystems connected to the STC2 and the spacecraft
support provided by a specific ground station. Reference tailoring
for monitoring and control of the subsystems is provided together
with the software versions.
- Weather Station (WEST) – VEGA has recently
developed the Weather Station Subsystem (WSDS) which is to be
deployed to the ESTRACK Ground Stations following its site
acceptance. This system regularly reads in weather measurements
(including temperature, humidity, pressure etc.) and stores them to
file for ESTRACK operations.
- Portable Spacecraft Simulator (PSS) – VEGA has
developed with SSBV (for the hardware) the Agency’s Portable
Spacecraft Simulator, a generic PC based system capable of
injecting telemetry into the downlink chain and receiving
telecommands from the uplink chain of a ground station. The PSS has
been deployed as part of the ESA ground systems test and validation
infrastructure throughout the ESA/ESOC ground station network.
- Ground Station Front-End Performance (GSFEP) –
VEGA performed the GSFEP study to specify suitable tools for
validation of ground station Front End (FE) performance, in
particular certain aspects of the ESA Front End Controller (FEC)
driving the ESA Antenna and Front End equipment. This included the
simulation of simultaneously running front-end equipment and the
simulation of signal reception from satellites in different
orbits.
- SLE Gateways – VEGA has over the last 10
years developed many SLE gateway systems providing the protocol
mappings between the end-customer system and the SLEAPI (and vice
versa), allowing addition of SLE interfaces to existing systems in
a efficient and cost-effective way without modifying existing
systems. SLE Gateways have been developed for ESOC, DLR, Svalbaard
and the Chinese Space Agency.
- The Space Link Extension (SLE) Test Tool
(SLETT) – was developed by VEGA to allow testing of SLE
Provider systems, such as TM/TC processing systems on ground
stations. It allows executing all protocol sequences defined in the
SLE standard and manipulating individual data values via a
graphical user interface. Built-in repetition features allow easy
implementation of long duration and endurance tests. In addition,
SLETT includes a script engine with access to all test features to
develop repeatable and automated test sequences.
Contact VEGA for further information about
ground station segment engineering