GENERIC ARCHITECTURE FOR MULTIMISSION POINTING GONDOLAS ABSTRACT (1) (1) Isabelle ZENONE , Nicolas BRAY (1) Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, 18 Av Edouard Belin, 31401 TOULOUSE Cedex 9, FRANCE (1) E-mail : [email protected], [email protected]

Pointing gondolas have been developed by CNES for several years under stratospheric balloons for scientific heavy payloads or for several lighter instruments. In such a context, CNES designed a new generic platform for pointing gondolas called CARMEN. Like a lego toy, CARMEN consists of functional generic equipment that can be joined together to fit various scientific needs with a low development cost and a short planning. Therefore, CARMEN, more than a mechanical structure, offers a set of functional servitudes through the next generic modules: - a safe power distribution with Lithium batteries, - a thermal control, - a date and localization diffusion based on GPS, - rough pointing actuators for azimuth and elevation with a precision about the arc-minute, - fine pointing actuators for elevation and cross-elevation coupled with azimuth controller with a global precision lower than the arc-seconde rms, - a CNES diurnal star sensor attitude (ESTADIUS), - a classic star sensor attitude (DTU), - a classic solar sensor, - a data storage with post-treatment tools, - TM/TC links based on IP and RS232, - solar or inertial pointings capabilities, - A damped tray for safety transportation of CARMEN fully equipped (servitudes and payloads) from CNES to launch site. CARMEN also suits the specific mission needs: doors management for instrument protection, elevation table, thermal covers to prevent excessive temperature during day flights… and mechanical specificities with bias management to improve the pointing precision. In terms of mechanical structure, CARMEN offers a large flexibility for mounting and fixing various scientific payloads: - 4 Large aluminum honeycomb panels including 100 clamping interfaces each for heavy payloads (4x100kg), - Aluminum lattice walls offering large capabilities to set gondola servitudes and/or scientific payloads servitudes. To shorten development cycles providing low cost developments with a strong validation process, each generic module has been designed like a board and ground product. Therefore, after a strict analysis of the mission needs, after the appropriate choice of generic modules, board modules can be integrated really quickly into the IP network of CARMEN gondola and their relative GUI’s into the ground segment. Afterwards, the last developments concentrate on the synchronization between modules and the consideration of the specific mission needs. Generic approach for CARMEN design reduces the work for the mechanical certification preparation for a dedicated flight: the mechanical certification of CARMEN is already established for a large variety of configurations in terms of volume and payload weights. Only payloads have to justify its ability to flight on CARMEN. Finally, a mission development and qualification is realized in a few months.

2/2

Several of our last scientific gondolas have benefited from this generic architecture: multimission CARMEN, PILOT, FIREBALL, CASOLBA… And we are still working on new generic modules: renewable energy module, TM/TC based on satellite communications, onboard IP Cameras…

Generic architecture for multimission pointing gondolas - NBray IZenone - Abstract .docx