The PLATO Instrument Control Unit Software: A Model Based SW architecture

Abstract

PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is a medium-class mission selected by ESA in the framework of the Cosmic Vision programme. The PLATO Instrument Control ICU is responsible for the management of the scientific payload, the communication with the SVM, and the lossless compression of scientific data before the download to the satellite Mass memory. The ICU requirements have been finalized for the Preliminary Design Review. The resulting technical specification has been used to design a Model Based Software architecture. The first two versions of the PLATO ICU SW have been released and fully validated on the target platform. This paper provides the details of the solutions adopted to cover all implemented services.