SOS: isolated health monitoring system to save our satellites

Abstract

With the advent of Space-IoTs, the rate of launch of satellites has grown significantly. Alongside, the failure rate of satellites has also surged increased tremendously. Satellites are non-repairable systems in orbit, and the financial loss incurred when the satellites fail before their expected mission time is substantial. If the source of a failure is known while the satellite is in orbit, then there is a possibility to revive it by sending appropriate commands from ground stations. In this work, we present a simple, independent satellite health monitoring system called Chirper. The Chirper is equipped with multiple modules such as IMU, isolated voltage and current measurement probes, and an onboard communication channel. We present a new approach to measure low DC voltages in an isolated way, providing a resolution and accuracy of around 1 V. We evaluated the design and performance of the Chirper through simulation, testing it in space systems test facility, and by mounting it on a helium balloon. With extensive experiments we show that 90% of the time the dc voltage measurement error is within 0.8 V, and the maximum error is 0.9 V. We expect to launch the Chirper soon on a space system.