Simulation and Validation of a SpaceWire On-Board Data-Handling Network for the PLATO Mission

TL;DR

This paper presents the simulation and validation of a SpaceWire network for the PLATO mission, ensuring reliable data handling from multiple telescopes and cameras in space.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation approach for validating the SpaceWire network architecture for the PLATO mission's on-board data handling.

Findings

Network performance was successfully assessed through simulations.

The SpaceWire network design meets the data handling requirements.

Validation results support the deployment of the network in the mission.

Abstract

PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is a medium-class mission belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA) Cosmic Vision programme. The mission payload is composed of 26 telescopes and cameras which will observe uninterruptedly stars like our Sun in order to identify new exoplanets candidates down to the range of Earth analogues. The images from the cameras are generated by several distributed Digital Processing Units (DPUs) connected together in a SpaceWire network and producing a large quantity of data to be processed by the Instrument Control Unit. The paper presents the results of the analyses and simulations performed using the Simulator for HI-Speed Networks (SHINE) with the objective to assess the on-board data network performance.