Toward a Reusable and Cost-effective Ground Control Software for Cubesat Missions

Abstract

Effective ground control processes – telecommand, telemetry, tracking, logging, data analysis and user-friendly visualization - are crucial for the success of a cubesat mission. Therefore, this paper introduces a hybrid design of ground control software for a university cubesat mission. It describes our approach to address limitations related to extensibility, user-friendliness, and ease of maintenance encountered with the C-based desktop application previously implemented for Masat-1, the first Moroccan initiative to develop a cubesat. The objective is to streamline these processes via a modular, reusable, and cost-efficient software solution while capitalizing on the strengths of the previous desktop application, the benefits of web technologies, and cost-effectiveness of open-source libraries and software tools. We are reusing the service-oriented architecture (SOA) and the client-server model as conceptual patterns, and we added a variant of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) to the list for separation of concerns and improved reusability. The front-end is developed using React, while Django powers the backend. We also integrated open-source libraries for user-friendly data visualization. Finally, the usage of Git and Docker will further enhance the development process, thus ensuring a reusable application suitable for the dynamic needs of eventual cubesat missions.