The ROSETTA mission is the first attempt to land a spacecraft on a comet. It was lauched in Febuary 2004. CAPTEC performed Independent Software Validation for the on-board software for communications with the ROSETTA lander.

The X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite (XMM) is a three-axis stabilised spacecraft carrying an observatory in the soft X-rays portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Among the aspects of X-ray astrophysics to be investigated are:

Stellar Coronae

Study of Hot Gas in Galaxies

The Diffuse X-ray background

After a 3 month in-orbit commissioning phase, the planned nominal mission lifetime is 2 years, but it will carry sufficient on-board consumables for an extra 8 years of extended mission life.

CAPTEC developed the on-board software for the attitude and orbit control computer (both the Application Software and the Operating System). The primary purposes of this software are:

controlling the attitude of the satellite

supporting ground control of the satellite orbit

These functions entail three data acquisition and control functions,

data acquisition from sensors

control calculations using sensor data

actuator commanding

and two functions for dialogue with ground,

processing telecommands from ground

reporting AOCS status to ground via telemetry.

The spacecraft is due for launch on the 10th of December, 1999.

For further information, you can visit the XMM Home Page at ESTEC

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The Huygens mission is to investigate the atmosphere and surface of Titan - the only one of Saturns moons to have an atmosphere. It consists of a probe which will be dropped into the Titan atmosphere by the NASA Cassini spacecraft 7 years after launch in 1997.

CAPTEC performed an independent software validation on the Huygens on-board software - including the Probe on-board software, the Support Avionics Software (on Cassini) and the Receiver Software (embedded software controlling the receiver end of the Huygens/Cassini radio link).

This validation was performed in 3 stages:

Generation of Probe System Software Functional Requirements

Code validation - analysis of requirements, design and code documentation against Software Functional Requirements

Preparation, specification, monitoring and evaluation of system level tests performed on the engineering model probe.

For further information, please visit the Huygens Home Page at ESTEC

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CAPTEC was responsible for the development of the Attitude and Orbit Control Software (AOCS) for this SOHO (SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite. SOHO was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida in December 1995 and has been operating successfully since then.

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CAPTEC was responsible for the development of the Attitude and Orbit Control Software (AOCS) for the ISO (Infrared Space Observatory) satellite. ISO was launched from French Guiana in October 1995 and has been operating successfully since then.

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The objective of the European Space Agency's Hipparcos mission was to produce an astrometric catalogue of about 100,000 stars to unprecedented accuracy levels. The mission has now been completed and publication of the catalogue is in preparation. Achievement of the mission's stringent performance requirements was dependent on an accurate in-flight calibration of the scientific instruments.
In a very successful five year project, CAPTEC, in association with University College Dublin, had primary responsibility for:

proposing suitable calibration methods

devising corresponding mathematical models

assessing the methods through analysis and simulation

proposing an overall plan for operational implementation

demonstrating the overall feasibility of the in-orbit calibration

For technical details please refer to Tuohey et al 1987, In-Orbit Scientific Calibration of Hipparcos, ESA Journal Volume 11 No. 1, pp. 1-17.

©2005 CAPTEC
Computer Applied Techniques Ltd