Science & Exploration

The JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explor­er) mis­sion is an ambi­tious project led by the Euro­pean Space Agency (ESA) with con­tri­bu­tions from NASA and oth­er inter­na­tion­al part­ners. Launched on April 14th 2023, JUICE will explore Jupiter and its icy moons, specif­i­cal­ly Ganymede, Europa, and Cal­lis­to. Equipped with a suite of sci­en­tif­ic instru­ments, JUICE will con­duct detailed inves­ti­ga­tions to under­stand the moons’ geo­log­i­cal activ­i­ty, sub­sur­face oceans, and poten­tial hab­it­abil­i­ty. JUICE will employ mul­ti­ple fly­bys and an extend­ed orbit around Ganymede to per­form close-up obser­va­tions to uncov­er its inter­nal struc­ture, mag­net­ic field, and icy crust.

The JUICE mis­sion promis­es to be a mile­stone in the explo­ration of the out­er solar sys­tem, unrav­el­ing the mys­ter­ies of Jupiter’s icy moons and shed­ding light on the poten­tial for extrater­res­tri­al life with­in our own cos­mic neigh­bor­hood.

DSI designs, devel­ops, man­u­fac­tures and qual­i­fies the Sol­id State Mass Mem­o­ry (SSMM) of the Com­mand and Data Man­age­ment Sub­sys­tem (CDMS). The SSMM is respon­si­ble for cross-strap­ping and switch­ing of SpaceWire links, stor­age and retrieval from mass mem­o­ry sec­tion (sev­er­al sources and des­ti­na­tions), pro­cess­ing for down­link (CFDP PDU gen­er­a­tion, Ka-band TM encod­ing) and con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing.

PLATO (PLAn­e­tary Tran­sits and Oscil­la­tions of stars) is a ESA mis­sion that aims to dis­cov­er and study exo­plan­ets. With a set of tele­scopes, PLATO will simul­ta­ne­ous­ly mon­i­tor thou­sands of stars, detect­ing plan­e­tary tran­sits and char­ac­ter­iz­ing a vari­ety of exo­plan­ets, includ­ing Earth-sized ones in hab­it­able zones. The mis­sion aims to under­stand exo­plan­e­tary sys­tem for­ma­tion, evo­lu­tion, and the poten­tial for hab­it­able envi­ron­ments beyond our solar sys­tem. PLATO will also study stel­lar oscil­la­tions to gain insights into star prop­er­ties. By pro­vid­ing con­tin­u­ous and pre­cise data over an extend­ed peri­od, PLATO will advance our knowl­edge of exo­plan­ets and their host stars, con­tribut­ing to the search for hab­it­able worlds and enhanc­ing our under­stand­ing of plan­e­tary sys­tems in the galaxy.

DSI designed, devel­oped, man­u­fac­tured and qual­i­fied the Sol­id State Mass Mem­o­ry (SSMM).

Mas­cot (Mobile Aster­oid Sur­face Scout) is a com­pact lan­der devel­oped by the Ger­man Aero­space Cen­ter (DLR) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the French space agency (CNES) as part of the Hayabusa2 mis­sion led by JAXA (Japan Aero­space Explo­ration Agency). Mas­cot was deployed on the aster­oid Ryugu in Octo­ber 2018. It’s equipped with sci­en­tif­ic instru­ments to study the asteroid’s sur­face prop­er­ties, com­po­si­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.

DSI designed and man­u­fac­tured the dual-redun­dant onboard com­put­er for MASCOT. Its func­tion­al­i­ty com­pris­es the gath­er­ing, com­pres­sion and stor­age of the sci­en­tif­ic pay­load and the house­keep­ing data and to run sub­sys­tem tasks or appli­ca­tions.

One of ESA’s con­tri­bu­tions to the Lunar Gate­way is the inter­na­tion­al habi­tat I‑Hab. The pres­sur­ized mod­ule will pro­vide liv­ing quar­ters for vis­it­ing astro­nauts as well as dock­ing ports for vehi­cles and oth­er mod­ules.

DSI designs, devel­ops, man­u­fac­tures and qual­i­fies the PDHU which would be respon­si­ble for data acqui­si­tion and data stor­age from the instru­ments on-board the habi­tat mod­ule of the Lunar Gate­way. I‑Hab also marks DSI’s first involve­ment in human space flight.