Cubesat or other space devices.

[USMCinfinity]

Hey guys, I was wondering, which microcontroller or FPGA if any is preferred for satellite applications? i.e. cubesat.

[gbulmer]

You might like to pop over to amsat.org

They have members who been building low cost satellites or experiments for satellites for some time, including cubesats.

In my limited experience, there are a bunch of very helpful, very knowledgeable people involved.

Things that matter are how long will your cubesat be in orbit, what height and orbital motion, etc?

The power budget is quite low, and radiation hardened electronics may be important. How long have you got to build the system?

[cubestos]

Which microcontroller or FPGA if any is preferred for satellite applications? i.e. cubesat.

I have a similar question ( see the detailed explanations here: Easy to use microcontroller for a beginner in Cubesats ). AMSAT is not of much help. They are dealing more with equipments for ground stations.

What I need for my cubesat project is something like an extremely tiny Arduino, the size of a Z80 processor made 30 years ago.

[retrolefty]

Just the Z-80 chip in 40 pin dip package, not including all the support stuff was larger then with model Arduino:

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9218

Lefty

[cubestos]

Thanks man. An Arduino board, like the one you indicated, I want.
However, I see it needs an USB interface.

There are ATmega with USB and bootloader on chip. Is there an Arduino (or something else) looking like the circuit in the picture but without that USB adaptor with FDTI?

As a note: The size, of the Arduino I need and the number of pins does not have to match exactly Z-80 capsule. It could have more or less pins.

[Jeckson]

how much and kinds sensors at load?

jeckson