THE ENHANCED EXPANSION PORT ON THE SPHERES-ISS FACILITY, AND EVALUATION OF THE CHIP-SCALE ATOMIC CLOCK ON SPHERES

摘要

The Synchronized Position Hold Engage Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) research facility on ISS has supported the development of satellite formation flight, path planning, and rendezvous and docking algorithms for over 5 years. SPHERES-ISS is now the only known platform for true extended duration, microgravity testing of satellite algorithms, and will continue to provide this capability to scientists for many years to come. In January, 2012 the SPHERES-ISS facility was upgraded to include an expansion port for attachment and operation of external payloads, thereby enhancing the capability of SPHERES to support a new class of satellite missions. This new interface port provides mechanical attach points, power, bidirectional serial communication and GPIO (General Purpose Input/Output) to the payload under test. This functionality opens up new capabilities for testing products and software on SPHERES that were not part of the original facility. Already several programs that include new hardware for SPHERES are in various stages of development and deployment to ISS. All of these experiments are being designed to interface with the new expansion port.