Ground Support Equipment for Small Satellites

Traditional Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) is composed largely of custom designed equipment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and usable only for the spacecraft for which it was designed. Due to the budgetary restraints associated with small satellite programs, non-traditional alternatives were explored. This paper describes an approach to EGSE design which utilizes commercially available products and costs considerably less than traditional equipment. Reusability of the equipment for subsequent spacecraft designs or for integration into ground station equipment is discussed. Various options are available for enhancement of the system to accommodate different telemetry rate and storage requirements, simulation needs, and input/output capacities.