News

STAR-Dundee attend DASIA in Porto

DASIA in Porto

Amid the backdrop of Port lodges and the historic buildings of Porto, the technologies presented at DASIA 2013 provided a lot of interest for STAR-Dundee attendees.

From the SpaceWire portfolio the most recent additions were presented: the SpaceWire EGSE and the AT7913E based SpaceWire RTC Development Kit. The SpaceWire EGSE, a programmable device simulator, is already proving popular due to it’s intuitive script language allowing complex instrument simulation to be achieved in a day, combined with it’s hardware based functionality giving it true real-time behaviour. Similarly the SpaceWire RTC Development Kit, that includes a fully integrated software development environment, is gaining a foothold as the one-stop-shop hardware and software development platform for the radiation tolerant Atmel AT7913E. The AT7913E RTC is a single-chip embedded system containing a radiation tolerant SPARC V8 core with FPU and embedded interfaces that acts as the bridge from sensor networks to SpaceWire networks, with the capability to effectively perform data handling at platform level and powerful data processing at payload level.

Under the University of Dundee banner, Managing Director Steve Parkes gave the first technical presentation outside the SpaceWire User Group forum about SpaceFibre. SpaceFibre is a multi-gigabit network protocol that builds on the SpaceWire protocol taking data rates to 2.5Gbits, and by greatly enhancing the fault tolerance and adding quality of service mechanisms allowing SpaceWire technologies to be a serious proposition for mission critical applications and an excellent option for other sectors such as Aerospace industry.

Check our website for more details on all the devices mentioned: SpaceWire EGSE,  SpaceWire RTC Development Kit and SpaceFibre.

Technical details and availability of the radiation tolerant AT7913E and other radiation tolerant devices can be obtained from Atmel.

STAR-Dundee Introduce SpaceFibre at 29th National Space Symposium

29th National Space Symposium

Another successful trip for STAR-Dundee exhibiting at the 29th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

Despite the attendance being low from the absence of NASA and other US Government bodies, a direct result of US budget sequestration, and the appearance of some late winter storms that saw outside temperatures drop to -13 degrees Celsius, the quality of the visitors to our stand was again high including a discussion with Lt. Governor of Colorado Joseph Garcia attending as co-chair of the Colorado Space Coalition.

Exhibiting at the NSS provided the first forum for us to introduce SpaceFibre to existing SpaceWire users and newcomers to SpaceWire technologies. SpaceFibre produced great interest with its ability to provide Gigabit bandwidths for data transfer on-board spacecraft, especially when backed with QoS mechanisms and much improved fault tolerance techniques.

Engineers enjoy a Eureka moment in the SpaceFibre Development!

STAR-Dundee hosted a collaboration of engineers to validate a significant milestone in the SpaceFibre development.

STAR-Dundee hosted a collaboration of engineers to validate a significant milestone in the SpaceFibre development.

A delegation of Engineers from NTSpace, NEC, MELCO and Osaka University travelled to STAR-House to join STAR-Dundee engineers to test and validate the interoperability of independent implementations of SpaceFibre CODEC IP cores. This milestone is a key turning point in the project and a significant step towards bringing gigabit data rates to satellites and spacecraft to meet the increasing demands of ever-more sophisticated technological advances of on-board instrumentation. The 10 fold increase in speed over the current SpaceWire standard still maintains the SpaceWire ethos of high reliability, low power and usability.

SpaceFibre is a very high-speed serial data-link being developed by the University of Dundee for ESA which is intended for use in data-handling networks for high data-rate payloads. SpaceFibre is able to operate over fibre-optic and copper cable and support data rates of 2 Gbit/s in the near future and up to 5 Gbit/s long-term. It aims to complement the capabilities of the widely used SpaceWire onboard networking standard: improving the data rate by a factor of 10, reducing the cable mass by a factor of four and providing galvanic isolation. Multi-laning improves the data-rate further to well over 20 Gbits/s.

SpaceFibre interface, SpaceWire to SpaceFibre Bridge, and SpaceFibre link analysis tools are available from STAR-Dundee Ltd.

Crowning moment in a big 10th year for STAR-Dundee Managing Director

RAes Award: crowning moment in a big 10th year for STAR-Dundee Managing Director

In the year that saw STAR-Dundee move into our own bespoke premises and adding to the celebrations of our 10th year since the company was formed, Steve Parkes has been honoured by the Royal Aeronautical Society in awarding him a Specialist Bronze Award for his instrumental role in the inception, development and continuing success of the SpaceWire Standard.

The Society’s Specialist Bronze Awards are presented for work of merit which has led to advances in specialist disciplines in the aerospace industry.

Receiving the award from Phil Boyle, President of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Steve said, “I am honoured to receive this award in recognition of the research I have had the pleasure to lead over the past 15 years. My thanks and appreciation goes to the members of my research team within the University of Dundee and STAR-Dundee, and to my colleagues across the world, who together made winning this award possible.”

Dr Philippe Armbruster, Head of the European Space Agency’s Data Systems Division said that “Professor Steve Parkes is well known to the European Space Agency for his numerous contributions to the work of its Technical Centre (ESTEC). He has been instrumental in the development of the SpaceWire concept, from its inception to its vast deployment within satellite on-board data handling sub-systems.”

Prof Tadayuki Takahashi of the Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency, JAXA, said “Professor Steve Parkes is the leader of the SpaceWire activity in the world. The sixth Japanese X-ray satellite, ASTRO-H, is a new generation of satellite that uses the SpaceWire architecture extensively. We appreciate his tremendous efforts to collect all requirements from the international community and to formalize as the standard.”

Jim Lux, of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, “Professor Parkes has been a leading force in the development and acceptance of SpaceWire as a high speed on-board data connection. I expect to see more and better science data from future missions that use SpaceWire because of his advocacy and persistence.”

STAR-Dundee attend JA2012 – Japanese International Aerospace Exhibition

Japanese International Aerospace Exhibition

STAR-Dundee was delighted to attend JA2012 on 9th-12th Oct in Nagoya in support of JEPICO, our distributer in Japan.

Japan International Aerospace Exhibition 2012 (JA2012) is the biggest show in the Japanese Aerospace Industry calendar occurring once every 4 years. The exhibition also contained a Space pavilion that included a display of the impressive achievements of the Japanese space industry over the years.

Attending the show provided a great opportunity to speak to both existing and potential customers within the Japanese Aerospace and Space industries, and to exhibit STAR-Dundee equipment including our latest products the SpaceWire EGSE and SpaceWire RTC Development Kit .

STAR-Dundee at the 26th Annual Small Satellite Conference

STAR-Dundee at SmallSat 2012

STAR-Dundee had a very successful visit to the 26th Annual Small Satellite Conference, 13-16 Aug 2012, Logan, UT, USA.

We would like to thank everyone who came to visit us at our exhibition stand. It was great to speak to existing customers, those new to SpaceWire and everyone in between. It was a particularly exciting time with the continued buzz following the successful Curiosity Mars landing and speaking to developers of equipment that contributed to the success.

We ran live demos of two of our newest developments: our most recently released SpaceWire RTC Development Kit and our soon-to-be-released SpaceWire EGSE. The SpaceWire RTC Development Kit is a combination of our SpaceWire Software Development Environment which supports our new SpaceWire RTC Unit based on ATMEL’s AT7913E; a flight ready LEON2-FT (SparcV8) based IC for interfacing on-board instruments. The SpaceWire EGSE is a highly capable test device designed to rapidly emulate or stimulate instruments and other SpaceWire enabled units, for which we are already taking orders.

For anyone who didn’t get a chance to speak with us, you can find more information about our products on the Products page or contact a member of the team using the Contact page.

STAR-Dundee are Exhibiting at 28th National Space Symposium, Colorado Springs

National Space Symposium, Colorado Springs

STAR-Dundee are excited to be attending the 28th National Space Symposium  in Colorado Springs, USA, over the 16th-19th April.

We will be running live demos of our newest development equipment including our most recently released Interface board the SpaceWire PCIe and two soon-to-be-released products: SpaceWire EGSE, a highly capable test device designed to rapidly emulate or stimulate instruments and other SpaceWire enabled units, and SpaceWire RTC Development Kit; our SpaceWire Software Development Environment supporting our new SpaceWire RTC Unit based on ATMEL’s AT7913E, a flight ready LEON based IC for interfacing on-board instruments. Watch our website for announcements on these products.

Come and visit us on our stand and you will receive a copy of the first printing of our SpaceWire User’s Guide; our guide to the SpaceWire Standard that gives practical information on designing and implementing SpaceWire systems, and also describes the origins of the Standard and some early Missions SpaceWire flew on. The SpaceWire User’s Manual can be read on-line in our SpaceWire Knowledge Base.

We will be exhibiting on booth 1515 in the Pavilion so we hope you can join us for what promises to be an interesting 4 days of seminars and exhibitions, networking and events.

STAR-System is launched!

STAR-System GUIs

STAR-Dundee is proud to unveil their new software stack: STAR-System.

The new system architecture has been designed as a minimal layer with a single programming interface, STAR-API, that is consistent across all supported operating systems. Written from scratch with the extensive knowledge gained from previous stacks, with all dependencies on third party code removed, has allowed the entire stack to be specifically optimised for speed and efficiency targeting SpaceWire applications.

STAR-API itself has been developed specifically for test and development, not just transmitting and receiving packets, but providing the functionality to, for example, transmit time-codes in sequence with data characters, and terminate packets with EEPs.

STAR-System is the software provided for accessing all new and future router and interface devices. The first STAR-Dundee products using STAR-System are the Mk2 interface device family including PCI Mk2, cPCI Mk2 and PMC Mk2.

STAR-System advances include support for:

  • 64-bit versions of Windows and Linux.
  • Running 32-bit applications on 64-bit operating systems.
  • Newer Linux kernels.
  • Multiple applications accessing the same device at one time.
  • Support for additional operating systems such as QNX
  • … and improved API documentation, examples, and application notes.

 

STAR-System includes GUI applications for both Windows and Linux, provided to make it easier for users to get started using STAR-Dundee devices. The new GUI applications provide a simple interface to the most common functions for users getting started with SpaceWire devices and systems: Device and Link configuration, Transmit and Receive packets, and Transmit and Receive statistics. Additional GUI features to be released very soon include: Packet Generator and Packet Checker, and Error Injection.

STAR-Dundee at 2011 International SpaceWire Conference

International SpaceWire Conference, Alamo

STAR-Dundee was delighted to attend the 4th International SpaceWire Conference, 8 – 10 Nov 2011, San Antonio, TX, USA.

A great number of the STAR-Dundee team attended the conference, with the company also having a stand in the conference’s industrial exhibition. We would like to thank everyone who made this year’s conference such a success, and we’d particularly like to thank those who came to visit us at our exhibition stand. It is always a pleasure to talk with and support the members of the SpaceWire community.

For anyone who didn’t get a chance to speak with us, you can find more information about our products on the Products page or contact a member of the team using the Contact page.

 

64-Bit SpaceWire USB Device Driver Released

USB Logo

STAR-Dundee have released a 64-bit SpaceWire USB device driver for Windows, to accompany the existing 32-bit driver, and it is now available for download.

The USB driver supports the SpaceWire Brick, SpaceWire Router-USB, SpaceWire Link Analyser, and the SpaceWire Conformance Tester. Both the 64-bit version of the driver and the 32-bit version will work on Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7), with 64-bit and 32-bit Linux also available. STAR-Dundee include drivers, APIs (where applicable), delivery, and technical support with all hardware.

To download the driver for your USB device, please register your product here

STAR-Dundee Expansion

Our new location

STAR-Dundee Expand Premises

We are proud to announce that STAR-Dundee have recently expanded to a new building. Our postal address has not changed, however please take note of our new contact numbers:

Postal address
STAR-Dundee Ltd.
Ewing Building
Smalls Lane
Dundee, DD1 4HN
Scotland, UK

General Enquiries Telephone
+44 (0)1382 201 755

Fax
+44 (0)1382 388 838

You can still receive technical support from support@star-dundee.com, quotes on SpaceWire products at quotes@star-dundee.com, or contact us with any other queries at enquiries@star-dundee.com.

New Chinese Distributor

Beijing Yoler Sci-Tech Development Co.,Ltd

STAR-Dundee have now appointed a distributor for our SpaceWire Products and SpaceWire IP Cores in China, Beijing Yoler Sci-Tech Development Co.,Ltd.

Beijing Yoler has gained recognition for their marketing efforts with SpaceWire technology and STAR-Dundee products. Beijing Yoler specialise in providing Spacewire Test & Development Equipment to the Chinese Aerospace industry, by introducing advanced international technology and bringing more targeted, distinctive products and a high level of service.

For Chinese customers interested in using SpaceWire technology, please contact Junzhe Liu (刘军哲) or Beijing Yoler directly:

Postal address
Junzhe Liu (刘军哲)
Room 210, Agriculture and Forest Committee office building,
No.7 Yard,
CAOQIAO,
Haidian district,
Beijing,
China 100080
Telephone
+86 010-59497290
Web Address
www.yolertek.com

For customers in other regions, please check our distributors page for contact information, or the Products and Quotations page and a member of the STAR-Dundee team will put you in contact with the appropriate persons.