Solar Physics Spacecraft Deployed from the Space Shuttle
Problem
Because traditional removable storage devices such as floppy disks are highly susceptible to data errors and corruption, they are inadequate for this application. The Spartan 201-05 is a Solar Physics Spacecraft that is manually deployed from the Space Shuttle while it orbits the earth. It is designed to perform remote sensing of the hot outer layers of the sun's atmosphere or corona. The objective of the observations is to investigate the mechanisms causing the heating of the solar corona and the acceleration of the solar wind, which originates in the corona. Extreme environmental conditions require a highly durable storage solution, while remote location requires extreme reliability.
Application
The Mini Gigabyte Backup (MGB) Data Recorder housed on the spacecraft performs much as a black box on an commercial jetliner. Its non-interactive recording mechanism, contained in a small rugged enclosure, continuously gathers and records scientific information and general instrument readings of the spacecraft.
Solution
The Adtron solution for this application consists of two components: a PC/104 bus interfaced removable solid-state drive and a PCMCIA form factor hard drive. The storage system allows the ATA PC Card hard disk to be used as the system disk.
Benefits
The storage system also allows the single board computer that controls the system to boot from the ATA hard disk without the need for additional device drivers or BIOS extensions. The system BIOS accesses the card/drive combination as a standard hard disk. In summary, the storage system provides the reliability and durability needed to meet the requirements of this unique environment.
Adtron Product
SDDP -- PC/104 bus interfaced removable and fixed storage system
