The in-flight experiment achievement is divided into different steps :

Setting-up of the insert and switching on (crew participation) ;
Initialization of experiment ;
Thermal regulation ;
Cycle of several elementary experiments ;
Stopping of thermal regulation ;
Turn off, removal and storage of the insert (crew participation).

Each elementary experiment is made up of a "preparation phase" and a "measurement phase".

The preparation phase corresponds to the period necessary to reach the conditions favorable to set up the scientific phenomenon to be studied depending on the type experiment. This phase lasts several hours.

The measurement phase corresponds to the period where the scientific phenomenon to be studied takes place. The beginning of this phase which lasts several minutes, can not be precisely determined. Thanks to the information given by the telemetry, the scientific user detects the beginning and sends commands to change the number, the type and the rate of the scientific data.

During this latter phase, the need for near real-time telemetry is up to one image per second through the NTSC line and up to 1Mb/s through the Ethernet link. In parallel, data can be stored onto the internal hard disk with a rate up to 12Mb/s. These latter shall be downloaded before saturating the hard disk (400 GB). This could be done during the preparation phases where the telemetry rate is lower. Note that a part of these data could be compressed reducing in this way the data volume to be sent to the ground.

The rest of the time, the near real-time telemetry is devoted to the control of the experiment. The rate is up to one image per minute through the NTSC line and up to 1MB/mn through the Ethernet link. The rate of scientific data stored onto the internal hard disk is up to 1MB/mn. Except during the initialization and the measurement phases, very few TC are planned to be sent.

DECLIC Typical experiment sequence

The figure above is an example of the thermal profile for a given area inside the insert and the expected TM/TC needs as function of the different steps.