ABSTRACT
The operator is an integral component of many telemetry and telecommand systems. For example, the operator of a satellite's control station is an expert who assesses the telemetry in real-time and sends commands to configure both the satellite and the control station for operations. This chapter looks at some of the issues involved with the computer systems, both in the payload and in the base station. The operator's hardware and software systems are more complicated than the payload system's since they must deal with the operator interface requirements for both telemetry display output and command data input. Designers of computer systems to support both the operator interface and the payload processing functions need certain common characteristics to sustain both the real-time processing algorithms and data movement. The important feature of the system is that the computer services the interrupt request before an external device generates its next interrupt service request for the same type of processing.
