The environmental test campaign of GMOD: a novel gamma-ray detector

Mangan, Joseph; Murphy, David; Dunwoody, Rachel; Ulyanov, A.; Thompson, Joseph; Javaid, Umair; O’Toole, Conor; Doyle, Maeve; Emam, Masoud; Erkal, Jessica; Fontanesi, Gianluca; Kyle, Jack; Marshall, Fergal; Nail, Rakhi Rajagopalan; Okosun, Favour; Reilly, Jack; Walsh, Sarah; Faoite, Daithí de; Salmon, Lána; Hanlon, L.; McKeown, David; O’Connor, William; Stanton, Kenneth T.; Wall, Ronan; Shortt, Brian; Vanreusel, Joost; Palma, David; Ha, Lily; McBreen, S.

doi:10.1117/12.2599225

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…Throughout the design and qualification stage of the life cycle, the spacecraft and payloads undergo numerous tests. Environmental testing may be conducted on the subsystem [4] and system level [8], which may also require pre-campaign functional and mission tests [9]. All of these tests can be used to inform additions or amendments to the existing functionality, providing feedback not found within the scope of the basic payload firmware requirements.…”

Section: Outputs From Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Experiences in firmware development for a CubeSat instrument payload

Mangan¹,

Murphy²,

Dunwoody³

et al. 2022

4th Symposium on Space Educational Activities

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Recent advancements in gamma-ray detector technology have brought new opportunities to study gamma-ray bursts and other high-energy phenomena. However, there is a lack of dissemination on the development methods, tools and techniques used in the production of instrument flight firmware. This is understandable as firmware for spacecraft payloads may be proprietary or exceptionally hardware specific and so is not always published. However, this leaves a gap in the knowledge for CubeSat teams, especially those consisting of university students who may be building a custom spacecraft payload with limited initial experience. The Gamma-Ray Module (GMOD) on-board EIRSAT-1, a 2U CubeSat in the 2nd European Space Agency Fly Your Satellite! programme, is one such instrument. GMOD features a 25x25x40mm Scionix CeBr3 scintillator, coupled to an array of 16 (4x4) JSeries OnSemiconductor MicroFJ-60035-TSV silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) with readout provided by the SIPHRA IDE3380 application specific integrated circuit. The instrument is supported by the Gamma-Ray Module motherboard which controls and configures the instrument, providing regulated voltage and current sources as well as generating time tagged event packets and a temporary on-board flash storage. At the core of this system is the Texas Instruments MSP430FR5994 microcontroller. A custom firmware was produced for the instrument by the EIRSAT-1 team over numerous cycles of testing and development to reliably perform the long duration tasks of readout, storage and transfer of time tagged event data to the EIRSAT-1 on-board computer. Recognising the value of sharing our experiences and pitfalls on firmware development with the wider CubeSat community, this paper will provide an introduction to GMOD, with focus primarily on the development approach of the firmware. The development, testing, version control, essential tools and an overview of how the resources provided by the device manufacturer were used will be examined, such that the lessons learned may be extended to other payloads from student-led missions

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Section: Outputs From Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Gamma-Ray Module (GMOD) is a <1U, gamma-ray detecting instrument which has been developed based on a heritage of tests (e.g. [4] and references therein). GMOD is the primary science payload on the 2U CubeSat EIRSAT-1 (Educational Irish Research Satellite) [5], a participant of the 2nd European Space Agency (ESA) Fly Your Satellite!…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiences in firmware development for a CubeSat instrument payload

Mangan¹,

Murphy²,

Dunwoody³

et al. 2022

4th Symposium on Space Educational Activities

Self Cite

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“…PTFE spacers support the detector components within the aluminium light-tight enclosure, forming the 75 mm × 51 mm × 42 mm detector assembly which is bolted to the motherboard. These spacers additionally provide good thermal isolation between the enclosure and the internal components, stabilising the scintillator and SiPM array temperature [50].…”

Section: Gmod -The Gamma-ray Modulementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The detailed detector design and experimental characterisation of the module are described in a separate paper [49]. The final detector design has been environmentally qualified [50].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A compact instrument for gamma-ray burst detection on a CubeSat platform I

et al. 2021

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The Educational Irish Research Satellite 1 (EIRSAT-1) is a 2U CubeSat being developed under ESA’s Fly Your Satellite! programme. The project has many aspects, which are primarily educational, but also include space qualification of new detector technologies for gamma-ray astronomy and the detection of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The Gamma-ray Module (GMOD), the main mission payload, is a small gamma-ray spectrometer comprising a 25 mm × 25 mm × 40 mm cerium bromide scintillator coupled to an array of 16 silicon photomultipliers. The readout is provided by IDE3380 (SIPHRA), a low-power and radiation tolerant readout ASIC. GMOD will detect gamma-rays and measure their energies in a range from tens of keV to a few MeV. Monte Carlo simulations were performed using the Medium Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy Library to evaluate GMOD’s capability for the detection of GRBs in low Earth orbit. The simulations used a detailed mass model of the full spacecraft derived from a very high-fidelity 3D CAD model. The sky-average effective area of GMOD on board EIRSAT-1 was found to be 10 cm2 at 120 keV. The instrument is expected to detect between 11 and 14 GRBs, at a significance greater than 10σ (and up to 32 at 5σ), during a nominal one-year mission. The shape of the scintillator in GMOD results in omni-directional sensitivity which allows for a nearly all-sky field of view.

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“…GMOD is a <1U scintillation based gamma-ray detecting instrument which features modern miniaturised detector technology in a robust and low power, CubeSat compatible form factor. The development of the GMOD detector builds on previous work including a number of technology investigations [6], [7], a five hour balloon flight at 37km float altitude [8], a 101.4MeV proton irradiation test [9] and most recently, the engineering qualification model environmental test campaign, including vibration and thermalvacuum testing [10]. GMOD is expected to detect ∼11-14 GRBs over a one year mission at a significance of 10 σ, within the standard 50 keV to 300 keV energy range [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embedded Firmware Development for a Novel CubeSat Gamma-Ray Detector

Mangan¹,

Murphy²,

Dunwoody³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The Gamma-ray Module (GMOD) is an experiment designed for the detection of gamma-ray bursts in low Earth orbit as the principal scientific payload on a 2-U CubeSat, EIRSAT-1. GMOD comprises a cerium bromide scintillator coupled to silicon photomultipliers which are processed and digitised by a bespoke ASIC. Custom firmware on the GMOD motherboard has been designed, implemented and tested for the MSP430 microprocessor which manages the experiment including readout, storage and configuration of the system. The firmware has been verified in a series of experiments testing the response over a realistic range of input detector trigger frequencies from 50 Hz to 1 kHz for the primary time tagged event (TTE) data. The power consumption and ability of the firmware to successfully receive and transmit the packets to the on-board computer was investigated. The experiment demonstrated less than 1 % loss of packets up to 1 kHz for the standard transfer mode with the power not exceeding 31 mW. The transfer performance and power consumption demonstrated are within the required range of this CubeSat instrument.

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The environmental test campaign of GMOD: a novel gamma-ray detector

Cited by 7 publications

References 26 publications

Experiences in firmware development for a CubeSat instrument payload

Experiences in firmware development for a CubeSat instrument payload

A compact instrument for gamma-ray burst detection on a CubeSat platform I

Embedded Firmware Development for a Novel CubeSat Gamma-Ray Detector

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