A New Spacecraft Software Development Paradigm Enabled by High-Performance Commercial Processors

Abstract

Typical space-qualified processors are relatively low-performance compared to terrestrial systems and therefore tightly constrain the software development for them. As a result, the industry has developed guidelines and restrictions for spacecraft software that preclude the full use of modern programming languages, software techniques, software tools, and software development methods. Developing software for a severely resource-constrained processor is more expensive and time consuming than developing software for a less constrained system. Therefore, using a higher-performance system with more resources allows the use of modern software languages and methods, reducing the spacecraft software development time and cost. We have developed a spacecraft system that uses a highly capable commercial single-board computer. The computing margins offered by this platform have allowed us to use a more modern software development process as well as modern software tools such as the full range of C++ features, a complete multi-user Linux distribution, and open-source middleware. This has greatly reduced the time and cost to develop and test spacecraft functionality.