Payload
Lead:
Vikram Ivatury (Aerospace Engineering)
Subsystem Overview
The payload team takes care of all handling of the camera used for M-Cubed. This included choosing a camera that is capable of taking a 2 megapixel image, but also easy to integrate and communicate with the rest of the satellite. This also includes performing all testing necessary to ensure that the camera that is integrated into the flight unit will function properly.
Camera
The satellite bus will be composed of an in-house, student developed spacecraft substyem built from Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware. A Stamp9G20 Microprocessor serves as the main onboard processor for the 2.0-megapixel OmniVision 2655 CMOS image sensor and the JPL CubeSat On-Board Processing Validation Experiment (COVE) payload.
With an active array size of 1600x1200 pixels, the small form factor and low mass of the image sensor allows it to sit on a small camera breakout board, which provides additional circuitry required to form a camera. Currently, image capture from the camera is fully functional, meaning that data is being passed from the camera to memory on the microprocessor. In addition, the camera operates within the correct power requirement range and is able to integrate directly with the flight computer using an Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) and Image Sensor Interface (ISI) protocol, without the use of any additional boards. Furthermore, the camera has survived thermal and cold vacuum testing for survivability. Finally, the camera has many built in image processing and characterization algorithms that can be controlled in-situ. This camera has a field of view of 50 degrees, a focal length of 3.8mm and a Ground Sample Distance (GSD) of 214 meters.
