TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION WITH THE MICRO-SATELLITE FLYING LAPTOP

The Flying Laptop is a micro-satellite currently under development by the Institute of Space Systems. Several promising technologies will be implemented. A high performance attitude control system with a pointing accuracy of 11 arcseconds, operating in a target pointing mode for image acquisition is necessary to achieve the planned scientific measurements. For communication a high speed Ka-band link using a traveling wave tube will be utilized. The on-board computer consists of a reconfigurable, redundant and self-controlling field programmable gate array with high computational power. In addition to the new technologies for the satellite bus a capable functional verification environment is under development applicable to the Flying Laptop.