Melbourne Florida., January 1999 -- Drawing from previous ICS experience with the GFO Spacecraft Simulator and the FleetSatCom simulators, ICS was responsible for rapid development of the command processing and External Interface Components for the spacecraft simulator for Earthwatch’s Quickbird 1 satellite.  The QuickBird system collects and processes imagery of the Earth to support the commercial development and distribution of image products. 

In this effort, the primary requirement was to train operators to safely and efficiently manage the spacecraft.  Secondary goals were to support development and debugging of operational procedures, post-launch regression testing of new ground software, and Spacecraft/Ground System Integration & Test .  ICS simulated the Telemetry Control Unit, the Command Decoder Unit, the spacecraft onboard computer, and clock and timer services, to support:

• variable rate encrypted/unencrypted command uploads

• upload format and syntax checking

• command decoding, verification, storage & dispatching

• behavioral simulation of all flight software tables & table upload operations

• 1553 command bus simulation

• fault injection, fault recovery

• variable rate telemetry data generation

ICS simulator code supported integration with the QuickBird Real-time Command and Control System (RCCS), and with several COTS and custom products, including STK (Satellite Toolkit) and G2-based ADCS (Attitude Determination and Control System) models, as well as industry standard COTS transmitter/receiver hardware.

Based on the experience gained here and from related efforts, ICS has developed Simulator Frameworks, a generic set of functionality which can be readily tailored to meet individual programmatic requirements.  This product is sold commercially on the ICS Storefront; the most recent use of this is for the Lockheed-Martin DSIM project.

ICS is a product development and engineering services company specializing in the development of Open Source real-time, embedded, and autonomous command and control software systems.  Services include software systems engineering, integration and test, and project and software life cycle management. ICS is a privately held company with main offices in Columbia, MD, and Melbourne, FL.

Contact information:

info@interfacecontrol.com Interface & Control Systems, Inc. 877-404-CONTROL