Product category: Networking Hardware
News Release from: 4Links | Subject: F201 EtherSpaceLink
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 17 June 2003
Portal puts SpaceWire on Ethernet
The F201 EtherSpaceLink is the first portal to link SpaceWire networks to Ethernet and the Internet
It supports TCP/IP and has its own IP address. The EtherSpaceLink permits experimenters to access SpaceWire remotely for software simulation of devices, remote monitoring and distributed system integration. It allows developers to build mixed Ethernet-SpaceWire systems, using SpaceWire for the more demanding areas and Ethernet for less critical applications.
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SpaceWire is being rapidly adopted by the space industry in the USA, Japan and Europe.
Based on IEEE1355, it provides networks that combine performance, scalability, responsiveness and fault-tolerance.
The EtherSpaceLink is a commercial off the shelf (COTS) product already in use with its first customer in Italy.
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"The space industry will use the EtherSpaceLink to test and simulate the instruments, subsystems and systems that are to fly in a satellite", said Barry Cook, Chief Technical Officer at 4Links.
"They can apply tests to the SpaceWire network from a laptop, from a Linux box or from a workstation, in fact from any device that supports Ethernet.
Since the EtherSpaceLink implements TCP/IP, it has Internet capability and provides a reliable connection, even when there are errors on the Ethernet".
The EtherSpaceLink is the first SpaceWire product to be announced that follows the approved version of the SpaceWire Standard (European Co-operation on Space Standardisation, ECSS-E50-12A of November 2002).
The full standard overcomes a number of problems with earlier versions and 4Links builds on these improvements.
The EtherSpaceLink has no limits on SpaceWire packet size (1byte to gigabytes or petabytes).
There are options available to exploit new features of the SpaceWire standard such as time-code generation, so that the whole SpaceWire network can have a consistent view of time, and which can be used as a basis for isochronous traffic over SpaceWire with exceptionally low jitter.
As with all 4Links products, the EtherSpaceLink is designed to be easy to use.
It is fully peer-to-peer on the SpaceWire side without needing master/slave initialisation.
The SpaceWire link is galvanically isolated, thanks to the transformer coupling of the Ethernet, so that additional isolation is not required between test equipment and satellite.
The power supply is also isolated, with an input range is 10 to 36V, which includes the 24/28V standard used on satellites.
Source is provided in both C and Java for the simple API, to make it easy for customers to develop their own applications.
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