Space science often uses the data obtained by the payloads onboard satellites, especially for those studies learning how the Earth’s environment is affected by the solar winds. A space mission requires a huge budget and is a very time-consuming task. Recently, the growth of Cubsat missions is rapid because of its advantage of low cost and first production. In Cubsat missions, image sensors are the primary payloads for remote sensing, which provides Earth’s images. Therefore, we developed an image sensor module to reduce the development time for future space missions.
In this work, we tested the control function of the microcontroller TI MSP432 for the image sensor. The CCD test setting includes the controls of exposure time and amplifier gain. The image sensor has an effective dimension of 659×494 pixels with a dynamical range of 10bit. The shortest exposure time can reach 1/60s. For image validation, we extracted the images using a digital logic analyzer and demonstrated the images using Matlab. Based on the test and validation, we developed an image capture circuit board with a physical size of < 10×10 cm2, which adopts a SmartFusion2 processor. This circuit board can be used for remote sensing and is qualified for future space missions.
