Embedded Firmware Development for a Novel CubeSat Gamma-Ray Detector

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 bespo...

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Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Mangan, Joseph, Murphy, David, Dunwoody, Rachel, Doyle, Maeve, Ulyanov, Alexey, Hanlon, Lorraine, Shortt, Brian, McBreen, Sheila, Emam, Masoud, Erkal, Jessica, Flanagan, Joe, Fontanesi, Gianluca, Gloster, Andrew, O'Toole, Conor, Favour Okosun, RajagopalanNair, Rakhi, Reilly, Jack, Salmon, Lána, Sherwin, Daire, Thompson, Joseph, Walsh, Sarah, Daithí de Faoite, Hibbett, Mike, Javaid, Umair, Marshall, Fergal, McKeown, David, O'Connor, William, Stanton, Kenneth, Wall, Ronan
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 04.11.2021
Subjects
Airborne/spaceborne computers
Cerium
Cubesat
Experiments
Firmware
Gamma ray bursts
Gamma ray detectors
Gamma rays
Low earth orbits
Motherboards
Packet transmission
Photomultiplier tubes
Power consumption
Scintillation counters
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Summary: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 50Hz to 1kHz 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 1kHz for the standard transfer mode with the power not exceeding 31mW. The transfer performance and power consumption demonstrated are within the required range of this CubeSat instrument.
ISSN:2331-8422