AZ Space Technologies

Menu

Menu

  • Home
  • Our Projects
  • Contact Us
Close

Spacecraft Engineering A to Z

AZST provides engineering design services for space vehicle subsystems and missions. Our employees are experienced in the design, development, and testing of spacecraft hardware and software.  We have expertise in all stages of spacecraft design and development, from proposal to on-orbit commissioning, for a wide range of military and NASA spacecraft.  Our team designs avionics such as command and data handling boards and payload interface controllers with embedded processors in FPGAs.  We can implement complex algorithms for functions such as image processing, navigation, and control.  We also have significant expertise in design and analysis of LEO satellite constellations, including coverage analysis, collision avoidance, deployment, and deorbit strategies.  Our focus is to support the mission by providing the engineering necessary to ensure the mission science and communication goals are achieved.  AZST can assist at all stages of a mission, from the proposal phase to on-orbit operations.  We utilize an AS9100 compliant quality management system.

Engineering Services

  • Spacecraft Subsystem Design
    • Avionics Hardware: C&DH, Payload Interface
    • Avionics Software: Flight Software, Payload Interface, Guidance, Navigation, and Control
    • Thermal, Structural, and Mechanical
  • Algorithm Development
  • Systems Design and Engineering
    • Mission Analysis and Design
    • Architecture Development: Satellite, Constellation
    • Spacecraft Systems Engineering
    • System & Subsystem Trade Studies
    • Consulting and Review Support
  • Test Hardware Development
Avionics Board

Avionics Board


Avionics Hardware

AZST provides specialized payload and instrument electronics for spacecraft including:

  • High reliability complex instrument electronics
  • On-board sensor data processing and data storage
  • Precise motion control
  • Very low noise applications

AZST can also provide Command and Data Handling boards for the command, telemetry, and payload interfaces in the small sat using protocols such as CCSDS and IP.

AZST avionics boards feature FPGAs enabling custom logic design for mission applications. Our board designs are radiation hardened, with SEU mitigation and error detection and correction in modular, compact, low power form factor.  Boards can use embedded processors in the FPGA for real time data processing.  We design boards that receive spacecraft commands and send telemetry to the spacecraft radio for transmission to the ground.  We also design boards that directly interface with payloads, custom process sensor data, perform data compression, and send the processed data to the spacecraft. Our boards can provide low noise motion and heater control.

Our Boards Contain...

  • FPGA or CPU Based Designs
  • Actel & Xilinx Reconfigurable FPGAs
  • Redundant or single string systems
  • Modular, compact, low power
  • Radiation tolerant, SEU-mitigation
  • Nonvolatile/volatile data storage
  • Servo and stepper motion drivers
  • RS-422, RS-485, 1553, LVDS, SPI, I2C, proprietary data I/O protocols
  • IP, CCSDS protocols
Motor Driver Board

Motor Driver Board


Avionics Software

AZST has vast experience in flight software. We can provide design of spacecraft guidance, navigation, and attitude control systems. We can also design and implement complex algorithms in software for applications such as constellation coverage and design, navigation filters, and guidance control laws. We can integrate auto-coded algorithms into real time computing environments and develop algorithms for operations such as onboard image processing.

Software Features...

  • Onboard real time operating systems (such as RTEMS)
  • Auto-coded algorithms developed in Simulink
  • Guidance, navigation, and control law design and implementation
  • Algorithm development for sensor data processing
Motor Driver Board

L'TES Controller


Structural and Thermal Design of Spacecraft

  • AZST can provide structural and thermal design for space and launch environments, both at spacecraft and electronic board levels
  • We use state of the art tools to design low mass spacecraft structures for custom applications

Validation of Thermal Models using Thermal Imaging


Cubesat Thermal Desktop Model


Mission and Algorithm Design

AZST can provide design and analysis of LEO satellite constellation architecture including coverage analysis, collision avoidance, deployment, and de-orbit strategies.

We can also design complex math algorithms to support mission requirements.

Coverage Analysis of LEO constellation

Coverage Analysis of LEO constellation

    • Copyright © 2019 AZ Space Technologies.  All rights reserved.