This part of the NITEOWL proposal written by
James Giesbrecht and Raj Srinivasan

DATA ACQUISITION

	Data acquisition is the process by which data is collected from the NITEOWL instrument.  This information consists of GPS coordinates, the signal from the video camera, images from the CCD, temperature, and pressure.  Rocket and payload tracking, which will be performed by Akjuit Aerospace, will provide supporting position information.

	The CCD images, temperature and pressure data are compressed and multiplexed with the 2 MHz video signal onto an S-band (1.6 GHz) carrier with a bandwidth of 10 Mbits/sec.  The GPS data is sent on a different carrier (Bandwidth?  Carrier?).  All this information will be collected on the ground by a system of  antennas.  Subsequently, the data will be demultiplexed, decompressed, and decoded before being stored.

	The complex nature of the data transmission system can be alleviated with a GPS-Telemetry package from Bristol Aerospace.  This system will address most of the issues related to data transmission from the instrument to the ground station.