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Authors
  • Miles Timpe
Responsible
  • Elouan Massastch
Last Updated10/12/2025, 12:48:54 PM
Last AuthorKai Berszin

Science Operations (SOPS) Experiments

See: Payload Experiment (PAY)

Artificial Gravity experiment: cancelled.

Extended Operations (XOPS) Experiments

Amateur Radio Experiment (HAMR)​

The (handheld) amateur radio (HAMR) transceiver on SAGE will allow amateur operators on the ground to send and receive signals to and from SAGE’s UHF transceiver. The signals that these operators send to SAGE over UHF will later be sent back down to the ground over the S-band transmitter. As HAMR is a passive experiment, it poses little to no risk to the mission and can near continuously as long as sufficient data bandwidth is available.

This experiment will receive signals from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and downlink the resulting data to the MOC during subsequent overpasses. This data, in combina- tion with sensor data, will allow engineers on the ground to, ex post, test algorithms related to positioning and attitude determination.

Trikarenos Hardware Testing (TRIK)​

Trikarenos is an initial test platform for a fault-tolerant microcontroller architecture designed to tolerate radiation-induced faults. An experimental Trikarenos application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) will be flown on SAGE and tested at various points during the XOPS mission phase. The goal of this experiment is to flight test the Trikarenos hardware and aspects of its associated software protocols.

Trikarenos’ System on a Chip (SoC) features a PULPissimo system with on-demand redundancy grouping of three Ibex processor cores, either to enforce correct execution or enable high perfor- mance in independent mode. Eight banks of word-interleaved memory present a total of 256 KiB storage, featuring error-correcting codes (ECC) to allow for single error correction and double error detection for each 32-bit data word. Typical for a PULPissimo platform, the SoC also features some simple peripherals, such as UART, SPI, and GPIOs. An initial watchdog implementation is also featured to ensure correctable behavior even for uncorrectable errors. Furthermore, dedicated scan chains allow injecting faults in the spatially separated cores for testing, and custom registers enable easy access to the individual memory bits to insert faults without dedicated radiation test equipment.

Attitude Control Algorithms Testing (ACAT)​

The attitude determination and control system (ADCS) team plans to host several semester the- ses aimed at developing and testing novel attitude control algorithms. These algorithms will be rigorously tested on the ground, first using software-in-the-loop (SIL) procedures, followed by hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing on the FlatSat. Once sufficiently proven on the ground, these algorithms will be uploaded to SAGE and activated at a pre-determined time. Due to the large risk that these attitude control experiments pose to the mission, the experiments will be closely monitored by the mission operations and ADCS teams at the MOC. Several automated precautions will be taken to ensure that SAGE is able to detect and recover from unexpected behavior caused by these experiments.

Swiss Training and outReach (STAR)​

An objective of the SAGE mission is to train the next generation of the Swiss space industry and raise awareness of spaceflight activities within the academic ecosystem and Switzerland at large (OBJ 008). Therefore, the MOPS team will coordinate regular training and outreach events during the XOPS mission phase. Training activities will focus on familiarizing university students (both within the SAGE team and the universities more generally) by providing them with hands-on experience in the MOC. Outreach activities will focus on inviting pre-university students, ARIS sponsors, and the public to observe and participate in MOC activities.

How to propose and onboard new experiments

Elouan TODO...

Changelog

DateRevisionChange
2025/02/2101Initial commit.