High-Performance Embedded System-on--Chip for space imaging spectrometer

System-on-a-chip (SoC) devices promise lighter, smaller, cheaper, more capable and more reliable space electronic systems. This paper describes the focal plane interface electronics – digital (FPIE-D) Xilinx Zynq-based data acquisition, cloud-screening, compression, storage and downlink computing system developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Alpha Data, Correct Designs and Mercury Systems for the NASA Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source (EMIT) instrument. EMIT is an imaging spectrometer that acquires 1280 cross-track by 328 band images at 216 images/sec. Following launch (14 July 2022), EMIT has been installed outside the International Space Station (ISS) and is collecting data from science targets in arid dust source regions of the Earth. EMIT will be used to study the mineral dust cycle which has multiple impacts on the Earth System. The science objective of EMIT is to close the gap in our understanding of mineral dust heating and cooling impact on the Earth now and in the future by determining the surface mineralogy of mineral dust sources.