Real-time data distribution for sounding rocket ground systems

The Swedish Space Corporation INS system is a modular real-time data distributing system for experiment- and housekeeping data for sounding rocket and small satellite systems. The system allows any number of simultaneous users and is based on standard Ethernet protocols and COTS h/w. The system is capable of handling virtually any number of separate data streams using the same physical network media. As the number of receiving clients does not have any impact on the real-time properties of the system, no specific considerations-or worries-are necessary as the number of users connected to the system increases. The data clients, receivers, has been implemented in different operating systems, such as Windows 95/98/NT/XP, Linux, QNX and MS-DOS. The system is the core part of the Control Centre for the Swedish scientific satellite ODIN, and is used on a regular basis in the MASER and MAXUS microgravity sounding rocket projects. This paper presents the system architecture and will discuss the considerations that were made during the system design phase and development.