Platform Upgrade of an Iridium-Based Satellite Communication System for Environmental Telemetry

Abstract

Remote environmental telemetry payloads, such as the experimental module for the iterative design for satellite subsystems (EMIDSS-8), a collaborative suborbital research mission supported by NASA and Mexican academic institutions, face severe battery capacity constraints while requiring reliable data acquisition and satellite transmission. To address these limitations, this work details the design and implementation of a low-power, layered embedded software architecture targeting the NXP S32K312 microcontroller. The system employs a dual-mode power strategy that combines a software-based cooperative scheduler with a deep hardware standby sleep state, utilizing standby SRAM to maintain clock synchronization and state persistence across wake-up reset boundaries. The implemented architecture successfully acquired temperature, pressure, and humidity data via an I²C interface and managed local data logging, while executing periodic telemetry transmissions over the Iridium satellite constellation. This architecture provides a highly robust and energy-efficient firmware framework directly applicable to extended-duration suborbital missions and remote satellite nodes