[Ground-station] Sounding Rockets and FPGAs - at a University

[Michelle Thompson]

If we were to propose an FPGA experiment on a sounding rocket (this is with
a University), what would be the best experiment?

Given the feedback and advice about working with Universities given here in
our discussion, it seems like we should have as clear a set of ideas as
possible.

The school raised the possibilty, has over a dozen successful launches,
uses amateur radio for scientific payload comms, but doesn't have a strong
FPGA program.

This would be a lot of mentoring at a minimum.

They are interested, at this stage, in communications Research questions,
and/or using open source communications  implementations to support
experiments. This would continue and strengthen a trend the school is
already doing.

What open questions are there that we can address? Is there anything at
this speed and altitude that we do not yet know from other results,
products, and experiments? In other words, what's our best Research
question?

Taking a tour of papers and posters, there's a lot of interest in
heterogeneous computing in space, but not a lot of great "problem
definition" for sounding rockets. Being "first to fly" X or Y SDR/FPGA
seems common. Flights are short, things better work.

Adapting to harsh and changing conditions quickly and reliably is a big
systems challenge for us. Is a sounding rocket the right entry point to
test this sort of work?

This is a situation where we may be able to upgrade communications links
for space in the service of education. Getting the transmitter "pulling
some weight" in an entirely practical sense would certainly help us get
that code base in better shape.

This is less communications Research, and definitely more Development. It
is not a bad fit at all, if there's commitment all around.

Thoughts? Warnings? Questions?

Thank you,
-Michelle W5NYV
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