Verification and integration of the management and control software for the Near Infrared Spectrometer Photometer of the Euclid space mission

The thesis comprises five chapters covering different items and phases of the work accomplished during my Ph.D program. Such work is part of the Euclid Project, a very high-profile space-based scientific mission designed to accurately measure the expansion history of the universe and the growth of cosmic structures. The first chapter is an introduction to the Euclid space mission and a description of Euclid’s scientific goals and instrumentation. The payload is a telescope that hosts two instruments capable of taking images at different wavelengths. In particular, the chapter provides a detailed description of the Near Infrared Spectrometer Photometer (NISP). The second chapter presents a detailed description of the NISP Warm Electronics (WE) with particular emphasis on the Data Processing Unit (DPU), the Instrument Control Unit (ICU), their application software (ASW), and the communication among them. The Assembly, Integration, Validation, and Testing (AIV/AIT) of such boards and the corresponding software are the main subjects of my Ph.D. study. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 which take into consideration the AIV activities and the specifically designed software tools, detail my contribution to the NISP WE AIV. The AIV of the NISP on-board software required a careful design and the development of software tools to verify functionality and performances. Great care was taken in the development of the software of the DPU test equipment controlling the interface with the DPU. I developed it in close cooperation with the NISP AIV/AIT team, the NISP-Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) team, and two industries (OHB Italia for the DPU hardware design and construction and Temis for the procurement of the DPU TE). The developed software was delivered to the industries and is now used for the validation of the DPU Electro Qualified Model (EQM) and the Flight Model (FM). Chapter 4 describes the DPU test campaign. I took part in the integration of the Application Software in the DPU board at OHB Italy and at INAF Padua. Chapter 5 illustrates the AIV/AIT activity for the validation of the NISP Avionic Model (AVM) before delivery to Thales Alenia Space Italia (TAS-I)

MORFEO enters final design phase

MORFEO (Multi-conjugate adaptive Optics Relay For ELT Observations, formerly MAORY), the MCAO system for the ELT, will provide diffraction-limited optical quality to the large field camera MICADO. MORFEO has officially passed the Preliminary Design Review and it is entering the final design phase. We present the current status of the project, with a focus on the adaptive optics system aspects and expected milestones during the next project phase

Verification and integration of the management and control software for the Near Infrared Spectrometer Photometer of the Euclid space mission

The thesis comprises five chapters covering different items and phases of the work accomplished during my Ph.D program. Such work is part of the Euclid Project, a very high-profile space-based scientific mission designed to accurately measure the expansion history of the universe and the growth of cosmic structures. The first chapter is an introduction to the Euclid space mission and a description of Euclid’s scientific goals and instrumentation. The payload is a telescope that hosts two instruments capable of taking images at different wavelengths. In particular, the chapter provides a detailed description of the Near Infrared Spectrometer Photometer (NISP). The second chapter presents a detailed description of the NISP Warm Electronics (WE) with particular emphasis on the Data Processing Unit (DPU), the Instrument Control Unit (ICU), their application software (ASW), and the communication among them. The Assembly, Integration, Validation, and Testing (AIV/AIT) of such boards and the corresponding software are the main subjects of my Ph.D. study. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 which take into consideration the AIV activities and the specifically designed software tools, detail my contribution to the NISP WE AIV. The AIV of the NISP on-board software required a careful design and the development of software tools to verify functionality and performances. Great care was taken in the development of the software of the DPU test equipment controlling the interface with the DPU. I developed it in close cooperation with the NISP AIV/AIT team, the NISP-Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) team, and two industries (OHB Italia for the DPU hardware design and construction and Temis for the procurement of the DPU TE). The developed software was delivered to the industries and is now used for the validation of the DPU Electro Qualified Model (EQM) and the Flight Model (FM). Chapter 4 describes the DPU test campaign. I took part in the integration of the Application Software in the DPU board at OHB Italy and at INAF Padua. Chapter 5 illustrates the AIV/AIT activity for the validation of the NISP Avionic Model (AVM) before delivery to Thales Alenia Space Italia (TAS-I).Questa tesi è divisa in cinque capitoli, che descrivono i diversi elementi e le fasi del lavoro svolto durante il periodo di Dottorato. Nel primo capitolo c'è un introduzione alla missione spaziale Euclid, e la descrizione dei suoi obiettivi scientifici, e degli strumenti progettati per completare la missione. Il payload della missione è un telescopio per l' osservazione dello spazio che monta due camere capaci di acquisire immagini su diverse lunghezze d'onda. In particolare è descritto lo Spettro Fotometro Infrarosso (NISP). Nel secondo capitolo c'è una dettagliata descrizione dell' elettronica che controlla il NISP. L' integrazione e i test sue queste schede elettroniche (AIV) è il principale soggetto di questo studio. Il mio contributo alle attività di AIV e la filosofia sottostante a tali attività sono descritti nel capitolo tre. È descritto il piano di test seguito e gli strumenti software sviluppati per questo scopo. Le attività Assemblaggio Integrazione e Verifica hanno richiesto una attenta progettazione di diversi software e dei metodi per verificarli. In particolare per lo sviluppo di un componente software usato nei test della DPU. Questo lavoro è stato svolto, congiuntamente ai gruppi NISP AIV/AIT e NISP EGSE e le industrie coinvolte (OHB Italia per le DPU e TEMIS per la fornitura di parte dell' equipaggiamento) ed è stato consegnato alle industrie per la validazione dei modelli di volo degli strumenti. La campagna di test della DPU è descritta nel capitolo quattro. Abbiamo contribuito all' integrazione dell' Application Software della DPU in due fasi svoltesi nei laboratori di OHB-I e nell' INAF di Padova. Nel capitolo cinque sono descritte le attività di AIV svolte per la validazione del modello AVM del NISP che doveva essere completata prima della consegna dello strumento a Thales Alenia Space

NISP AVM Shipping&Packing list

Shipping&Packing lis

On-board data processing for the near infrared spectrograph and photometer instrument (NISP) of the EUCLID mission

The Near Infrared Spectrograph and Photometer (NISP) is one of the two instruments on board the EUCLID mission now under implementation phase; VIS, the Visible Imager is the second instrument working on the same shared optical beam. The NISP focal plane is based on a detector mosaic deploying 16x, 2048x2048 pixels^2 HAWAII-II HgCdTe detectors, now in advanced delivery phase from Teledyne Imaging Scientific (TIS), and will provide NIR imaging in three bands (Y, J, H) plus slit-less spectroscopy in the range 0.9÷2.0 micron. All the NISP observational modes will be supported by different parametrization of the classic multi-accumulation IR detector readout mode covering the specific needs for spectroscopic, photometric and calibration exposures. Due to the large number of deployed detectors and to the limited satellite telemetry available to ground, a consistent part of the data processing, conventionally performed off-line, will be accomplished on board, in parallel with the flow of data acquisitions. This has led to the development of a specific on-board, HW/SW, data processing pipeline, and to the design of computationally performing control electronics, suited to cope with the time constraints of the NISP acquisition sequences during the sky survey. In this paper we present the architecture of the NISP on-board processing system, directly interfaced to the SIDECAR ASICs system managing the detector focal plane, and the implementation of the on-board pipe-line allowing all the basic operations of input frame averaging, final frame interpolation and data-volume compression before ground down-link

The application software of the instrument control unit of Euclid-NISP: ready for qualification tests

In this paper we describe the application software (ASW) of the instrument control unit (ICU) of NISP, the Near-Infrared Spectro-Photometer of the Euclid mission. This software is based on a real-time operating system (RTEMS) and will interface with all the subunits of NISP, as well as the command and data management unit (CDMU) of the spacecraft for telecommand and housekeeping management