California Institute of Technology

Gary S Bolotin

Don J Hunter

Huy H Luong

Steven H Wood

John Cardone

James A Donaldson

Ben Cheng

Sunant Katanyoutanant

Malcolm L Lias

John J Waters

Current sensing devices that are capable of surviving harsh ambient environment of ocean worlds, such as Jupiter and Saturn moons are disclosed. The described devices can meet 300 Krad radiation requirements and can survive at cold temperatures down to &#x2212;184&#xb0; C. Exemplary implementations of the constituent circuits of the devices are presented. A scheduling algorithm to perform various measurement by the disclosed current sensing devices is also described.

Current sense multi-chip module

A three-dimensional connection system uses a plurality of printed wiring boards with connectors completely around the printed wiring boards, and connected by an elastomeric interface connector. The device includes internal space to allow room for circuitry. The device is formed by stacking an electronics module, an elastomeric interface board on the electronics module such that the interface board's exterior makes electrical connection with the connectors around the perimeter of the interface board, but the internal portion is open to allow room for the electrical devices on the printed wiring board. A plurality of these devices are stacked between a top stiffener and a bottom device, and held into place by alignment elements.

Three-dimensional modular electronic interconnection system

An uplink controlling assembly speeds data processing using a special parallel codeblock technique. A correct start sequence initiates processing of a frame. Two possible start sequences can be used; and the one which is used determines whether data polarity is inverted or non-inverted. Processing continues until uncorrectable errors are found. The frame ends by intentionally sending a block with an uncorrectable error. Each of the codeblocks in the frame has a channel ID. Each channel ID can be separately processed in parallel. This obviates the problem of waiting for error correction processing. If that channel number is zero, however, it indicates that the frame of data represents a critical command only. That data is handled in a special way, independent of the software. Otherwise, the processed data further handled using special double buffering techniques to avoid problems from overrun. When overrun does occur, the system takes action to lose only the oldest data.

Parallel processing spacecraft communication system

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Pasadena, CA, United States of America

Gary S Bolotin