Yamcs Suite is a general Mission Control System framework. It has been developed around the criteria of flexibility and open source code to innovate, reduce MCS development, implementation and integration costs through easy expandability, scalability, and adaptability over time.
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Yamcs Suite targets general MCS, both for operations of spacecraft, payloads and ground equipment, and for activities during assembly, integration and testing.
Yamcs Suite comprises two main modules: Yamcs Core and Yamcs Applications. The Yamcs Core encompasses the Server and the Archive system, while the Yamcs Applications encompasses current (and future) plugin modules. Whilst Yamcs Core meets the essential needs of a wide range of missions, Yamcs Applications augments the core with the most commonly needed functions. All these modules are further described in separate product sheets.
Yamcs Core comprises a Server and an Archive system. Its main purpose is an efficient and effective processing of telemetry and commands. The Server can be connected to a TM/TC rontend (interface to Ground Station or EGSE equipment) or to a simulator used for development and test of the ground software or for training purposes. The data acquired from the TM/TC frontend is interpreted based on the Mission Database. The Archive is a powerful storing system with functionality to inspect and retrieve data and to assess the archive completeness. It employs a graphical user interface. Connected to Yamcs Core are a number of workstations which run end-user applications such as displays or commanding tools. Yamcs Core uses an embedded key-value database for storing all the received TM and sent TC. This helps to keep the deployment dependencies at a minimum. Support of distributed “big data” databases such as Apache HBase is also envisaged. Communications between several Yamcs Servers is performed using the HornetQ message system. This allows complex deployments to handle use cases like mirror of archives, cascading of data to a DMZ network, forwarding data from remote sites, etc.