A Primer for Telemetry Interfacing in Accordance with NASA Standards Using Low Cost FPGAs
Jake A. McCoy, Ted B. Schultz, James H. Tutt, Thomas Rogers, Drew M., Miles, Randall L. McEntaffer

TL;DR
This paper presents a low-cost FPGA-based telemetry interface for asynchronous photon counting detectors on sounding rockets, emphasizing minimal custom hardware and compliance with NASA standards.
Contribution
It demonstrates how to implement a telemetry interface using low-cost FPGAs and minimal additional hardware, suitable for space applications.
Findings
Successful implementation of FPGA-based TM interface
Low power consumption achieved with commercial off-the-shelf components
System tested with simulated telemetry chain
Abstract
Photon counting detector systems on sounding rocket payloads often require interfacing asynchronous outputs with a synchronously clocked telemetry (TM) stream. Though this can be handled with an on-board computer, there are several low cost alternatives including custom hardware, microcontrollers and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). This paper outlines how a TM interface (TMIF) for detectors on a sounding rocket with asynchronous parallel digital output can be implemented using low cost FPGAs and minimal custom hardware. Low power consumption and high speed FPGAs are available as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products and can be used to develop the main component of the TMIF. Then, only a small amount of additional hardware is required for signal buffering and level translating. This paper also discusses how this system can be tested with a simulated TM chain in the small…
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