CLIDE Camera

The CLIDE camera is needed by the CubeSpark mission to detect small, dim electrical discharges that frequent intense thunderstorms and often elude current global lightning mappers. CubeSpark, which is being developed by NASA and Los Alamos National Lab, will use a constellation of small satellites to autonomously detect lightning and map it in 3-D for the first time globally. The CLIDE camera will utilize a new CMOS image sensor (CIS) to acquire higher resolution images and be packaged in a smaller form factor than current satellite-based lightning mappers so it can be hosted on a 12U or smaller cubesat platform. The CIS was recently developed through the NASA/NOAA geostationary satellite program for a future lightning mapping instrument called LMX, and MSFC acquired three of these packaged sensors to use in CLIDE. Previous MSFC CIF projects supported development of the CLIDE instrument concept and its optical design that resulted in NASA SMD funding the initial CubeSpark measurement concept study. Additional internal funding from MSFC and SMD-leveraged projects were used to procure parts, including three packaged LMX sensors, FPGAs, and test equipment, to build a CLIDE prototype. We are seeking support to use these parts to build the electrical subsystem of the CLIDE camera. This project will design and build the electrical interface needed to communicate with the LMX sensor and configure a Xilinx FPGA to pull images off the sensor so it can be characterized in our state-of-the-art optical lightning calibration facility and tested with our event detection algorithm. The end product of this project is an electrical subsystem of the CLIDE camera that has been demonstrated to acquire images at a speed of 2kHz from the LMX CMOS image sensor.

This project will demonstrate a high-speed, digital image acqusition system for the CubeSat Lightning Imaging and Detection Experiment (CLIDE) instrument that is being designed to facilitate the CubeSpark satellite mission concept.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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