Design and Development of Generic Nanosatellite Bus Ground Control Software Suite

This thesis describes, in chronological order, the design and implementation of four separate ground control applications for use of the Generic Nanosatellite Bus, a multi-purpose satellite platform developed at the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory. A direct ground control application and time-tagged remote control application are used to provide full control over a Generic Nanosatellite Bus satellite for short and long term operational and testing purposes. Similarly, a direct control application and a scheduling application are implemented for the control of the payload computer on CanX-3 BRIght-star Target Explorer, a stellar-observation satellite based on the Generic Nanosatellite Bus platform. This thesis goes into details on how the display and control interface is implemented and used, what set of actions are taken to create and interpret packets exchanged over a communications link, and what precautions are taken in the face of expected issues.