The SpaceWire Electronic Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) is a test and development unit that simulates instruments or other SpaceWire equipment in real-time. The EGSE is configured using a simple yet powerful scripting language designed specifically for SpaceWire applications. Once configured the EGSE operates independent of software resulting in real-time performance. This can be used to rapidly mimic the behaviour of SpaceWire equipment, vastly reducing traditional development time, risk and cost associated with writing equivalent software in a real-time operating system.

This application note provides an example of how a camera may be simulated using a SpaceWire EGSE. Comparing this to traditional EGSE which requires complex and expensive real-time software development, the time saving, risk reduction and cost benefits provided by the SpaceWire EGSE should become clear.