The Data Processing Electronics of the METIS Coronagraph aboard the ESA Solar Orbiter Mission

METIS is the Multi Element Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy, a Coronagraph aboard the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter Mission aimed at the observation of the solar corona via both VIS and UV/EUV narrow-band imaging and spectroscopy. METIS, with its multi-wavelength capabilities, will study in detail the physical processes responsible for the corona heating and the origin and properties of the slow and fast solar wind. METIS electronics will collect and process scientific data thanks to its detectors proximity electronics, the digital front-end subsystem electronics and the MPPU, the Main Power and Processing Unit, hosting a space-qualified processor, memories and some rad-hard FPGAs acting as digital controllers.This paper reports on the overall METIS electronics architecture and data processing capabilities conceived to address all the scientific issues as a trade-off solution between requirements and allocated resources, just before the Preliminary Design Review as an ESA milestone in April 2012. Keywords—Solar Coronagraph, Data Processing Electronics, VIS and UV/EUV Detectors, LEON Processor, Rad-hard FPGAs