S-Band CCSDS Compatible Transmitter Communications Layer for CubeSats

The Remote sensing and Interference detector with radiomeTry and vegetation Analysis (RITA) is an Earth Observation (EO) payload developed by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) NanoSat Lab, winner of the Second IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge, flying aboard AlainSat-1, a 3U CubeSat from the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) of the United Arab Emirates. RITA hosts three experiments: an L-band Microwave Radiometer (MWR) for soil moisture and sea ice data collection, a LoRa transceiver enabling on-demand experiment execution via ground sensors, and a Near-Infrared (NIR) Hyperspectral Camera for vegetation monitoring and water mapping. To transmit scientific data from the payload to ground stations, RITA employs an S-Band down-link compatible with Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) standards, also used for AlainSat-1’s telemetry and scientific data transmission. Standard communications protocols increase mission success rates and enable interoperability between agencies and future scalability. This work presents the implementation of Processing System (PS) and Programmable Logic (PL) CCSDS compatible S-Band down-link communications for AlainSat-1.