Summary

The Rocket Lab Frontier-S is an S-band software defined radio designed for both near earth and deep space missions. It consists of hardware critical command decoder (CCD) enables hardware-based functionality like fire-codes for spacecraft reset or precision time keeping.

Frontier-S has a two-way doppler and two-way ranging for navigation beyond low earth orbit (LEO). The product weighs 590 grams and has a SpaceWire host interface.

Key features

GEO/deep space radiation tolerance – high tolerance to total dose, no destructive latchup, and robust to single event upsets.
High Reliability variant available with enhanced radiation tolerance and upgraded parts program
Hardware critical command decoder (CCD) enables hardware-based functionality like fire-codes for spacecraft reset or precision time keeping
DSN, SN, NEN, AFSCN Unified S-band (USB), and commercial (SSC, KSAT) waveform compatible
CCSDS compliant turbo and convolutional encoding
Two-way Doppler and two-way ranging for navigation beyond low earth orbit
Non-regenerative (coherent turn-around) or regenerative PN ranging
Very low data rates and beacon tones enable long range communications and signaling

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Last updated: 2023-02-06

Rocket Lab