Poster: Scalable On-board Computing for Space Avionics (ScOSA)

Abstract

The research project "Scalable on-board Computing for Space Avionics" (ScOSA) aims to create a high-performance, distributed and reliable on-board computer for future spacecrafts. It consists of a network of nodes among which processing tasks can be distributed. Nodes are either reliable computing nodes (RCN) that guarantee fail-safe operation or COTS-based high-performance nodes (HPN). External devices are connected to the system using special interface nodes. The overall system performance can be adjusted to the processing needs of the spacecraft by changing the number of processing nodes in the network. One advantage of the network architecture is the ability to reallocate the system's computational resources to meet the needs of different mission phases, e.g., switching from processing science data to computing control algorithms during the landing phase. Continuous health checking of the system allows detecting failures early on and secures the mission objective through reconfiguration. The network is reconfigured in a way which isolates the failing node and redistributes its applications among the remaining nodes. The applications are then resumed from the most recent checkpoint losing some overall performance but allowing for continuous mission operation. DLR is currently working on maturing ScOSA and proving its performance with several possible mission applications.