Overview

The purpose of the CYGNSS mission was to improve the accuracy of hurricane forcasting (both in terms of intensity and projected path) by catching reflected GPS signals off waves in hurricanes as they formed and moved, and from this data compute wave height, windspeed, and direction–crucial components in determining hurricane trajectory and projected strength.

My role

As a team we developed the flight software which flew onboard each of the 8 satellites in the constellation as they orbited the earth around the equator. I contributed:

• Bootstrap: written in SPARC assembly

• System software: written in C. I wrote drivers for UART, I2C, FPGA, SpaceWire, and other communication interfaces, as well as power management. Targeted RTEMS, LEON2-SPARC, 4Mb memory, 50 Mhz.

• Application software: written in C. I contributed to the science data processing modules, telemetry handling, and general satellity health monitoring. Targeted RTEMS, LEON2-SPARC, 4Mb memory, 50 Mhz.