Session
Session 3: Next On The Pad 1
Abstract
Radiation effects on space computers are becoming more of a concern as feature sizes of modern transistors continue to shrink, which in turn increases their susceptibility to single event effects (SEE) caused by ionizing particles. This is especially of concern when flying commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts that are attractive from a cost perspective but do not have any intentional radiation “hardening”. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are emerging as a potential platform to implement novel computer architectures for space due to their inherent flexibility; however, they are uniquely susceptible to SEEs due to storing their configuration in on-board SRAM. Montana State University has been developing a radiation tolerant computer technology for the past decade that exploits the re-programmability of an FPGA to mitigate SEEs. In this approach, a redundant architecture is able to continue foreground operation in the presence of faults. When the fault is detected, the impacted region can be re-programmed in the background to flush out any errors and restore the region to its original operational state. This technology has been advanced to TRL-7 through a series of demonstrations and is now being prepared for an orbital mission to achieve TRL-9. This paper presents the details of the upcoming mission to deploy a 3U CubeSat, called “RadSat” into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) using the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) from the International Space Station (ISS).
Presentation
Next on the Pad: RadSat - A Radiation Tolerant Computer System
Radiation effects on space computers are becoming more of a concern as feature sizes of modern transistors continue to shrink, which in turn increases their susceptibility to single event effects (SEE) caused by ionizing particles. This is especially of concern when flying commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts that are attractive from a cost perspective but do not have any intentional radiation “hardening”. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are emerging as a potential platform to implement novel computer architectures for space due to their inherent flexibility; however, they are uniquely susceptible to SEEs due to storing their configuration in on-board SRAM. Montana State University has been developing a radiation tolerant computer technology for the past decade that exploits the re-programmability of an FPGA to mitigate SEEs. In this approach, a redundant architecture is able to continue foreground operation in the presence of faults. When the fault is detected, the impacted region can be re-programmed in the background to flush out any errors and restore the region to its original operational state. This technology has been advanced to TRL-7 through a series of demonstrations and is now being prepared for an orbital mission to achieve TRL-9. This paper presents the details of the upcoming mission to deploy a 3U CubeSat, called “RadSat” into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) using the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) from the International Space Station (ISS).
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