Development, implementation, and testing of software for the CanX-1 on-board computer and ground station

CanX-1 was designed and built by students along with mentoring from staff in the Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) at University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS). It was launched on June 30th, 2003. It is the first picosatellite in Canadian history. This thesis describes the general features of CanX-1 with emphasis on the subsystem On-Board Computer (OBC) and its software. Discussion of the OBC hardware is necessary to understand the development of embedded flight software and communication protocols. This thesis also discusses the development of the ground station software for CanX-1. It concludes with some suggestions for future OBC designs and software architectures for future CanX missions.