Apex on Nico Maas

[PiAndMore] apex Mk.2/Mk.3 on DLR MAPHEUS 10 Presentation

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 11:50:27 +0000

Here is my presentation to the apex Mk.2/Mk3 @ PiAndMore 14 (University of Applied Sciences Trier, 26.09.2026)

Videorecording can be found here: tbd

[Paper] apex Mk.2/Mk.3, apex MCC, apex MRMSS

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 08:00:19 +0000

Finally the series of studies of the apex Mk.2/Mk.3 experiments flown on MAPHEUS 10 (2021-12-06) are peer-reviewed and published. You will find them as follows:

Paper

apex Mk.2/Mk.3: Secure Live Transmission of the First Flight of Trichoplax adhaerens in Space Based on Components Off-the-Shelf: https://doi.org/10.3390/eng6090241
The apex MCC: Blueprint of an Open-Source, Secure, CCSDS-Compatible Ground Segment for Sounding Rockets, CubeSats, and Small Lander Missions: https://doi.org/10.3390/eng6090246
The apex MRMSS: A Multi-Role Mission Support System and Service Module Simulator for Payloads of Sounding Rockets and Other Space Applications: https://doi.org/10.3390/eng6090247

Media

[PiAndMore] Yamcs Presentation

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:54:10 +0000

Here is my presentation to Yamcs @ PiAndMore 13 (University of Applied Sciences Trier, 22.04.2023)

Yamcs_PiAndMore13.pdf

Videorecording can be found here

[Talk] IoT Happy Hour #56: balena in Space

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:00:19 +0000

I took part in balena’s IoT Happy Hour #56 on 11.06.2021 to talk about the past, present and upcoming apex missions.

You can watch the talk here on balenas Youtube channel.

[Paper] apex: A new commercial off-the-shelf on-board computer platform for sounding rockets

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 13:33:54 +0000

In order to supersede the aging Microchip ATMEGA328P as the de facto standard for Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) On-Board Computers (OBCs) with a more powerful system for different kinds of high-speed sensors and image acquisition applications, we developed advanced processors, encryption, and security experiment (apex). The platform consisting of a newly developed OBC using COTS components has been flight tested during the ATEK/MAPHEUS-8 sounding rocket campaign. The main advantages of the apex OBC lies in the speed and simplicity of the design while maintaining operational security with a redundant master-master microcontroller system, as well as dual flash storage within each master. Additionally, a single board computer with a containerized and failure-resistant Operating System (OS) (balenaOS) was included to allow usage of a high-definition camera or other more compute-intensive tasks. The bench and flight tests were performed successfully and already showed feasible ways to further improve operational performance.