Space Electronics
Electronics and software for space technology must fulfil special requirements in terms of reliability and robustness. Extensive tests and verifications are part of the development process. Our experience from other safety-relevant sectors such as the railway, medical and automotive industries helps with space projects.
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Space Heritage
SCS has experience in the verification of interfaces between satellites and ground infrastructure for experiments in space. This includes, for example, error simulation and relates to ESA Technology Tree 8B-3 (Collaborative Engineering), 8D-2 (System Verification) and 9C-2 (Ground Data Systems).
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Safety-relevant systems
The experience gained from over 3000 successful projects, some of them in safety-relevant and highly regulated areas such as railways (up to SIL 4), helps the developers at SCS to implement space projects reliably. Our developers can also contribute their experience from the medical and automotive sectors to space projects.
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From problem solver to system designer
The starting point for a project with SCS is always a problem or a goal of our client. Our focus is always on high-performance and reliable software, an embedded system and security by design.
Product development for the aerospace industry
When electronics or entire systems are developed for experiments in space, they have to be tested extensively before being launched into space. In particular, the interface to the satellite or the control unit for the experiments in a space station must be verified. A test environment is often developed for this purpose, which corresponds to the interface via which the experiment is addressed in the satellite and via which the results are sent to Earth. The test environment is also used to deliberately generate errors and thus test the robustness of the electronics used for the experiment.
ESA Technology Tree
ESA defined a technology tree to structure the technical knowledge within the organisation. In particular, SCS has knowledge in the areas of 8B-3, 8D-2 and 9C-2. 8B-3 concerns collaborative engineering and covers methods and tools for how development teams can work together across larger distances and structures. 8D-2 concerns the system verification of ground support equipment – i.e. any type of tool or infrastructure that is used while a system or experiment is still or again on earth. 9C-2 concerns preparations and procedures of Ground Data Systems.
Safety-relevant systems
SCS can look back on various developments in highly regulated and safety-relevant industries. Many projects are in the railway sector, where SCS develops systems up to SIL4 level (interlocking technology, EN50128). In the medical sector, this mainly relates to the EN13485 standard and in the automotive sector to the ISO 26262 standard. The decisive factor is the methodology used to approach a project. With over 3000 realised projects, SCS can draw on a wealth of experience. These are often interdisciplinary projects, as in the space sector.
High-performance software
In many projects at SCS, the focus is on high-performance, reliable software that should only consume a small amount of power so that it can run on embedded hardware, for example. The developers at SCS have experience with embedded system design, which often runs a Linux operating system. To ensure that the software is not only reliable but also secure, IT security is taken into account from the very beginning of the project.