Galaxy

Galaxy

Galaxy® is Hammers’ command and telemetry system. Galaxy is derived directly from the ITOS telemetry and command system developed by the Hammers Company with NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and we have been delivering Galaxy commercially since 2000.

Galaxy is a CCSDS compliant satellite command/control and telemetry processing system. Users customize Galaxy for a particular mission through a database to which they provide telemetry and command specifications. The database contains descriptions of how spacecraft commands are entered mnemonically and translated into binary commands, and how telemetry packets are to be unpacked into a set of named variables. The database includes specifications for telemetry limit checking and for engineering unit and discrete text conversions. Users design telemetry displays, plots, sequential prints, configuration monitors, and spacecraft command and table loads in simple text files stored on the computer’s file system. Most displays can be viewed remotely over the web or by using remote Galaxy® instances.

Galaxy can accept telemetry from and send commands to multiple peers simultaneously, and those peers can include multiple spacecraft, simulators, ground stations, and many other entities and combinations. Galaxy communicates over a wide variety of transports and protocols including TCP/IP networking, synchronous and asynchronous serial ports, SpaceWire, MIL-STD-1553, and the GMSEC message bus. Galaxy implements the CCSDS Space Data Link Security Protocol using AES-256/GCM for encrypted and authenticated command uplink.

Galaxy can be configured to be a spacecraft, instrument, or component simulator. In this scenario, Galaxy can exchange commands and telemetry with instruments or other components over any supported interface. By installing a 1553 card in the host computer, for example, Galaxy can act as a bus controller, running the spacecraft 1553 bus schedule and interfacing with instruments or other spacecraft hardware; or it can act as one or more remote terminals.

Hammers offers full, client, and workbench licenses for Galaxy. The full license includes all functionality, except SLE and CFDP, which are options. The client license does not provide telecommanding or telemetry archiving. The workbench license is intended for wide distribution so that every engineer and flight operator can have a copy running on their own laptop or desktop computer, but these instances may not be used with an actual target (flight computer, spacecraft, etc). Galaxy is especially well-suited to projects using NASA’s cFE/cFS flight software core.

For more information on cFE/cFS, follow these links: cFE cFS OSAL

To obtain a copy, or get more information on pricing …