In-Space Interface: Universal Device Adapter

It is well known that standardization is advantageous to high volume products. Yet standards need to change over time to accommodate new capabilities, and adapters often arise to promote backwards compatibility and avoid the need to replace existing technologies when new technologies appear. Hence even with high volume standardization, to accommodate various suppliers, form factors, changes in technologies, obsolescence, and backwards compatibility, adapters are needed and widely used in many industries. Might issues with supporting similar accommodations be minimized or eliminated in spacecraft with the use of adapters, like in terrestrial products? This paper introduces that concept with one such adapter for space, named the Universal Device Adaptor (UDA). Its purpose is to make it more cost effective to allow the ability to customize and adapt to changes, accommodate space payloads and components rapidly, all without forcing the common wide variety and possible incompatible or proprietary interfaces found on traditional buses. This is achieved through the UDA, which adapts the bus to the payload, instead of the other way around.