Abstract
The ZDPS-1A pico-satellite designed in Zhejiang University with a mass of 3.5 kg and a power consumption of less than 3.5 W is the smallest satellite in China up to now. The housekeeping system (HKS) is the core part of ZDPS-1A. The reliability of HKS has an important influence on the safety of the satellite. Traditional fault-tolerant methods do not apply to ZDPS-1A due to such pico-satellite characteristics as light weight, compactness in size, energy saving, and high integration. This paper deals with a highly-reliable, low-cost design for HKS using industrial devices. The reliable strategies of HKS include a dual modular redundancy scheme, CPU warm backup, a static triple modular redundancy scheme, and two-level watchdogs. Recursive experiments, special tests, and environmental tests show that this system meets the design target. This design has already been applied to ZDPS-1A, which was launched to execute in-orbit tasks on Sept. 22, 2010. To date, the satellite has been in a proper state for more than 15 months.
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Project supported by the Foundation for the Author of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of China (No. 200035) and the Ministry of Education Science & Technology Research Project, China (No. 104069)
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Zhang, Y., Zheng, Ym., Yang, M. et al. Design and implementation of the highly-reliable, low-cost housekeeping system in the ZDPS-1A pico-satellite. J. Zhejiang Univ. - Sci. C 13, 83–89 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.C1100079
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.C1100079
Key words
- ZDPS-1A
- Pico-satellite
- Reliability
- Housekeeping system (HKS)
- On-board computer (OBC)
- Warm backup
- Fault tolerance