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ANITA buttons up
One of the
most important things to do while mechanically integrating the ANITA
payload into the TIGER gondola is to make sure that the data is also
well integrated. Since all of ANITA's data is sent through our
flight CPU, we have to make sure that the CPU can decide which data is
the most important to send over TDRSS, without getting bogged down by
having to process too much information. Our data is prioritized
such that ultra-heavy cosmic rays are processed and sent over TDRSS
above any other data. Anything picked up by the ANITA antennae is
then sent down at a lower priority. This works fine since TIGER
will expect a higher data rate than ANITA will.
We began another TURFTS test today without
ANITA. Instead of simulating our data with LEDs, we used a
precision pulser to "trick" the instrument into thinking it was
receiving not-so-heavy cosmic rays. We were able to regulate the
number of events that TIGER got every second with the pulser. By
giving TIGER more and more events every second, we were able to see how
the computer is able to process these less-important events. And
luckily, the CPU worked better than we thought it was going to.
By the end of the day, the ANITA guys were ready to
begin dropping their electronics down
into their pressure chamber. Tomorrow, we'll do another
TURFTS test to see how our flight computer deals with both simulated
not-so-heavy cosmic rays and simulated ANITA events.
I had a great time this evening over at
Gallagher's. Today is my friend Kris's birthday and all of her
friends threw her one of the best birthday parties I've ever
seen. Two cakes, lots of decorations, and dancing the night
away...
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