Distributed Space System Architecture to Enable Rapid Technology Development

The Experiment for Space Radiation Analysis (ESRA) is the next in the series of Demonstration and Validation (DemVal) projects the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) program will fly. The ESRA program will mature technologies such as the novel Wide-field-of-view Plasma Spectrometer (WPS) and the Energetic Charged Particle (ECP) telescope, along with high voltage power supply, a 3U Eurocard single board computers, flight software architecture, and analog-to-digital electronics. The WPS and ECP sensors are intended to actively monitor the local space environment, thus allowing for the attribution and rapid anomaly resolution of unanticipated instrument or spacecraft behavior as a result of space weather effects. The Autonomous Ion Mass Spectrometer Sentry (AIMSS) is a high-resolution ion mass spectrometer designed to make observations of low-energy space plasmas in planetary ionospheres. Additionally, AIMSS is capable of measuring charge exchange ions due to the interaction of spacecraft thruster plumes and the ionospheric plasma as they deliver supplies and crew the International Space Station (ISS). The particles expelled by thruster systems cause contamination of space station surfaces that degrade optical and thermal surfaces along with causing increased spacecraft surface charging.