JET PROPULSION LABORATORY INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM
TO: Distribution DFM 96-XXX
FROM: Donald Meyer October 11, 1996
SUBJECT: EDL Packet Telemetry Formats
REFERENCE: Salvo, C. "Revision to 11/10 Baseline EDL Telemetry Content", IOM 313-CGS-95-N.117 Rev.A, November 16, 1995.


Introduction:

This memo defines the packet telemetry formats dedicated to the Mars Pathfinder Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) mission phases. "EDL" includes the autonomous deployment of petals and airbags.

The Reference specifies in detail the data items to be captured and their rates (if appropriate). This memo specifies in detail the packets' formats for those data items.

Telemetry Phases:

The EDL packet telemetry is collected during six sequential, non-overlapping, time intervals as follows:

Telemetry Packet Formats:

EDL data is returned in normal CCSDS packets. The maximum packet data size of 2176 bytes (17408 bits) is chosen in conformance with the guideline to not have packets exceed two downlink transfer frames.

Packets are grouped according to five Application Process Identifiers (APIDs) as follows:

APID 27: The full set of Atmospheric Structure Instrument (Experiment) data from RAM.
APID 31: The first-to-be-transmitted Critical EDL data from EEPROM.
APID 33: Engineering data from EEPROM.
APID 38: A subset of Atmospheric Structure Instrument (Experiment) data from EEPROM.
APID 39: Engineering data from RAM.

For each APID, there are Packet IDs which specify the exact contents. For each APID/Packet ID there may be several packets which are further labeled by a Packet Number. The final Packet Number of a set is marked by adding the value 1000. The Packet ID and Packet Number constitute the data header for all packets. Only packets which contain periodically sampled data have a meaningful Packet Number (not for APID 31, Packet IDs 0 and 1.)

Periodically sampled packet data is organized into records. All records are physically contiguous, following the Packet ID and Packet Number words. Record formats are described at the end of this memo.

All packets which contain periodically sampled data have the time of the first record recorded in the packet's Secondary Header. Within each such packet the records are time-contiguous at the indicated rate. Periodic data received from the LREU with a "bad data" indication will be recorded as having value zero. Recording of these values maintains the time-continuity of the data stream so that only time-tagging the start of the stream is necessary.

The four-byte "EDL time" consists of the two low-order bytes of the seconds portion of spacecraft time followed by the two bytes of the subseconds portion of spacecraft time (14-bit precision for subseconds, left-justified).

The following discussion relates only to the data portion of an EDL packet.

Telemetry Record Names

Byte Size  
24 Surface Deployment Trace Data Record
17 Low Rate Surface Deployment Time Series Data Record
6 ASI Accelerometer Short Data Record
24 ASI Accelerometer Long Data Record
2 ASI Z-axis Accelerometer Data Record
26 ASI Accelerometer Support Long Data Record
4 ASI Accelerometer Support Short Data Record
6 AEA Accelerometer Short Data Record
24 AEA Accelerometer Long Data Record
2 AEA +YZ-axis Accelerometer Data Record
26 AEA Accelerometer Support Long Data Record
4 AEA Accelerometer Support Short Data Record
24 ASI Science Long Data Record
8 ASI Science Short Data Record
4 AIP High-rate Data Record
20 AIP Low-rate Data Record
24 ASI Science Housekeeping Data Record
3 Electrical Sensors Data Record
23 Temperature Sensors Data Record
2 Parachute Algorithm Acceleration Data Record
2 Parachute Mortar Backup Timer Value Data Record
4 RAD Algorithm Values Data Record
2 RAD-firing Backup Timer Value Data Record
2 RAS Hardware Output Word Data Record
6 Deployment Algorithm Acceleration Data Record
8 Airbag Actuator Counts Data Record
4 Airbag Actuator Temperature Data Record
6 Petal Actuator Counts Data Record
3 Petal Actuator Temperature Data Record

Telemetry Record Formats: