Design of a Highly Radiation-Tolerant Reconfigurable Data Transmitter for ISRO’s Solar Observation Mission

The Indian Solar Observation Satellite, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is a critical mission designed to enhance our understanding of solar phenomena and their effects on space weather. Positioned in a halo orbit around the Earth-Sun Lagrangian point L1, the satellite has advanced instruments to observe the Sun’s outer atmosphere, solar flares, sunspots, and coronal mass ejections. Operating in a high-radiation environment with abundant high energy charged particles, the satellite’s electronics must be highly radiation-tolerant to ensure accurate data collection with minimal errors. Due to the vast distance between the satellite and the ground station, the modulator in the data transmitter is designed for reconfigurability, enabling it to maintain a stable link without requiring changes to the power amplifier or antenna configuration. The system has been specifically engineered to be immune to Single Event Upsets (SEU) and Single Event Functional Interrupts (SEFI), ensuring reliable space performance. Comprehensive RF-level testing and evaluation were performed before the integration of the transmitter into the satellite. Post launch, the data transmission system demonstrated exceptional performance, effectively supporting the satellite’s mission objectives and ensuring high-quality data downlink from the solar observatory.