The MDA High Power Command card provides an extensive selection of interface to Spacecraft Platform devices: deployment mechanisms actuators, solar arrays & antenna drive mechanism, thermal heaters drive, and propulsion system control, for many applications ranging from Command & Data Handling, scientific instrumentation and payload controllers.

High Power Command Card

• Thermal control Heater Switches
  • Drives 24 low side heater switches with up to 1 Amp for each heater load from the S/C primary power bus (28V or 50V).
  • Independent control for each heater circuit.
  • Status flag for each heater switch available as BITE telemetry.
• Stepper Motor Drive for driving 3-axis Gimbal motors
  • Stepper Motor encoder & drivers for 3 phase (Y windings) or 2 phase unipolar winding
  • 28V drive (up to 1A), configurable step rate.
• High Level Pulse Commands
  • Qty 4 28V drive (up to 0.5 A into inductive loads), for power Latching relays drive
  • Qty 6 28V drive, high-side current boost outputs, with fast turn-On/off for driving high pressure gas valves
    • Protected by separate enables command qualifying the activate command
    • Separate Enables of low-side switches with BITE sense to prevent a fault from activating the mechanism
    • On time configurable in FPGA (in msec to seconds)
• "Pyro" Actuators Drive for deployment mechanisms
  • Qty 6 Thermal Knives/Cutters control, 20V drive @ 1 A load for 60 sec
  • Qty 4 Quicknut or Frangibolt control: 20V or 28V drive
    • 20V drive @ 4.5A 35msec pulse for driving QuickNuts
    • 28V drive @ up to 4A for 60 sec for driving "Frangibolts"
  • Fault Protection by separate enables command qualifying the fire command
    • Separate Enables of low-side switches with BITE sense to prevent a fault from driving an un-selected actuator
    • Active On time configurable in FPGA (in msec, seconds or PWM drive)
• Pulse Commands outputs
  • Qty 4 Pulse commands outputs, 28V drive
    • Configurable Pulse duration
    • Resistorcontrolledsourcecurrent,shortcircuitprotected
• CAN Interface: CAN 2.0 Serial Bus at 1 Mb/s.
  • RS485 compatible voltage levels, with biasing resistors, consistent with the CAN bus standard levels
  • Cold Redundant compatible (high impedance when powered off.)
  • Dual redundant A/B bus with separate transceivers on each bus.