Solar Orbiter/PHI Electrical Functional Model ready for delivery
The Electrical Functional Model (EFM) of the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) for the upcoming joint ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter space mission is ready for delivery to Airbus DS and for integration into the electrical test bench of the spacecraft.
The PHI EFM provides full electrical functionality including detectors, mechanism drives and onboard software. During the science phase of the mission the EFM will serve ESA and the instrument team as a ground reference model for commanding and resource testing.
The PHI instrument is designed to first ever perform substantial in-flight scientific data calibration and analysis which requires sophisticated onboard data processing hard- and software.
The EFM with its stacked Electronics Unit (large metal box) including the power converter, various control units and the digital processing unit as well as two of the mechanism simulators and two image sensor units on the front side as well as the camera power supply visible on its back side.