The objective of the course is to provide a comprehensive understanding of scientific and navigation payloads of a spacecraft and its accommodation onboard the spacecraft. The course offers the students the possibility to develop the necessary skills to understand the challenges of instrument design starting from high level performance requirements to low level implementation requirements.
The first part of the course focuses on technical aspects, starting from payload design to its final accommodation inside the spacecraft. These technical aspects include: scope and requirements of an instrument; power and data interfaces with the spacecraft; mechanical, thermal, and electromagnetic compatibility with other onboard instrumentation in a given environment; instrument mass, volume, and power consumption and their impacts on the spacecraft design. This module tackles the main design phases and reviews of an instrument and the test campaign before being integrated in the spacecraft. This module also covers the challenges of adapting an instrument to work in different mission scenarios. As an example, the selection of the launcher plays an important role in determining the vibration environment of the instruments inside a craft, or radiation tolerances can significantly vary depending on the mission profile.
The second part of the course focuses on the analysis of payloads and their main characteristics and purposes. A set of selected instruments will be analyzed using the underlying design choices and challenges that engineers must face. The student will be familiarized with these challenges during the first part of the course. Technical features and requirements of the instrument will be compared with the measurement performances and needs based on real world examples. The payloads that will be analyzed include (may change yearly): laser altimeter, radio transponder, spectrometer, radar, camera, accelerometer, magnetometer, particle analyzer, and laser reflectors. The scientific measurements and information that they can provide are analyzed independently for each instrument, highlighting their synergies. As an example, the laser altimeter data can be combined with radio tracking data to measure physical and gravity tide of celestial bodies, thus helping us to infer internal structure of those body.
The theoretical background that the students developed during bachelor’s and master’s degree is applied in a specific topic allowing the student to understand the challenges of realizing space qualified instruments.
At the end of the course, the student will acquire the following skills:
1) Understanding of the interfaces (mechanical, electrical, thermal) between the instrument and the spacecraft;
2) Understanding the instrument requirements and its impact on the spacecraft design;
3) Assessing the impact on the instrument design of the operational environment;
4) Capability to write clear requisites for the spacecraft system engineers;
5) Understanding the functions and goals of the instrument in the context of the mission and the usage from the data user.
6) Acquire knowledge on some of the most widely employed instruments in space exploration.
