Advancing payload processing into the 21st century

Abstract

Launching payloads into space has become a weekly occurrence around the world. Although it is becoming commonplace, it has not become a low-cost or low-risk, quick or simple process. An effort is being worked at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to create a process with a generic set of tools and hardware that will advance paylaod processing into the 21st Century by making it more efficient and less complicated. This new process would be more cost effective, have a shorter cycle time, and expend fewer resources than in the past. KSC is NASA’s Center of Excellence for Payload Processing and has over thirty years of experience in processing all types of payloads (shuttle and expendable). KSC is currently developing and operating a high fidelity checkout system that will be used to perform a final functional checkout of flight interfaces between the International Space Station (ISS) and its science experiments. These interfaces include high-, medium-, and low-rate data communications, video, command and data handling, power, fluids and gases. This checkout system also contains an ISS Program equivalent ground station that receives, processes and distributes payload telemetry to the appropriate user or operator. KSC is also working with the ISS Program distributed verification tool used by payload developers to verify their experiments meet ISS Program specifications prior to being sent to KSC for final checkout and launch.