Pansat Functional Testing Software and Support Hardware

Abstract

The Petite Amateur Navy Satellite (PANSAT) was successfully launched aboard the STS-95 Discovery. PANSAT provides digital store-and-forward communications in a low-Earth orbit, and is a platform for an instructional laboratory. The spacecraft was built and tested at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, by officer students, research staff and faculty. The PANSAT digital hardware was prototyped with various commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software to assist in designing the unique systems which were eventually built and integrated into the spacecraft. This paper presents the hardware and software components used to develop the PANSAT spacecraft. Details of the evolution of design and testing are explained as well as the tools to complete the final functional verification performed during payload integration. The concepts presented are applicable to generic space flight experiments.