ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

The growth of computation and memory capability on central on board computer allows centralised architecture, integrating on the same processor, several software related to different avionics equipment. The main benefit of splitting the hardware of “intelligent” equipment is to save power consumption and mass which are critical items for LEO constellation spacecraft in particular. For Iridium Next program, Thales Alenia Space has applied this strategy for Star Trackers which on board processors have been split away from Optical Heads. The presentation will give an overview of main technical points related to central software architecture, central on-board computer characteristics, major difficulties of such an approach and results of this integration.