Spacecraft command and data system simulator for the payload chaste in Chandrayaan-2 mission

Chandra's Surface Thermo-Physical Experiment (ChaSTE) is one of the science experiment proposed to conduct in lunar surface in Chandrayaan-2 mission. This experiment is going to be carried out for twenty eight days in lunar surface by establishing a live control from earth station. Check out systems are being designed and implemented as part of testing payload. The functions of this check out system are the replica of the spacecraft command and data communication system. This system simulates the communication and control operations in the experiment. In this paper, a check out system is proposed as the spacecraft command and data system for the payload ChaSTE using microcontroller. ChaSTE spacecraft command and data system simulator (CCDS) acts as the space craft communication system which simulates the telemetry and telecommand operations. The main functions of the ChaSTE spacecraft command and data system simulator are i) control the set of instruments associated with the payload ii) Collect, process, format, store data from the payload and deliver data to the space craft communication system iii) Receive, decode, store, distribute commands from earth station and initiate all commands. CCDS also measures health parameters of the entire system. In addition, It controls the deployment and heating mechanism with data validation. Simulation model and engineering model of CCDS are designed and implemented with Industrial and space qualified components. Graphical User Interface (GUI) software is designed and developed for the earth control station. The ChaSTE Spacecraft command and data system was successfully tested at different temperature and pressure conditions.