A second generation of our widely used SpaceWire PCIe board is now available with several improvements over the original product. The SpaceWire PCIe Mk2 board is a three port SpaceWire interface and router device, suitable for all stages of SpaceWire equipment development: initial SpaceWire evaluation, instrument simulation, control system simulation, unit testing, and spacecraft equipment integration support. The board is backwards compatible with the original SpaceWire PCIe (Mk1) board and adds extensive fault protection to meet most FMEA requirements. The new board also includes two external triggers not present on the Mk1, to enable synchronisation of packet transmission with external events and signalling of packet reception, and other events, to external equipment.

To facilitate fault protection, the SpaceWire PCIe Mk2 is powered from both +3.3V and +12V, compared to the Mk1, which is powered by +3.3V only. The power for both +3.3V and +12V supplies is taken from the PCIe slot that the board is plugged into.

As with the SpaceWire PCIe Mk1 and many of our other SpaceWire and SpaceFibre products, the SpaceWire PCIe Mk2 is supported by STAR-Dundee’s STAR-System software, making it simple to move from another product to the PCIe Mk2. Example command line applications are provided with source code to demonstrate common tasks, and to test a device’s throughput and latency. GUI applications are also provided to support the configuration of devices, the transmission and reception of packets and time-codes, and to inject errors.

SpaceWire PCIe Mk2 boards have now been shipping to initial customers for several months while we have worked to build up sufficient stock to fulfil future orders.