SpaceCube Demonstration Platform

Next generation instruments are capable of producing data at rates of 108 to 1011 bits per second, and both their instrument designs and mission operations concepts are severely constrained by data rate/volume. SpaceCube is an enabling technology for these next generation missions. SpaceCube has demonstrated enabling capabilities in Earth Science, Planetary, Satellite Servicing, Astrophysics and Heliophysics prototype applications such as on-board product generation, intelligent data volume reduction, autonomous docking/landing, direct broadcast products, and data driven processing with the ability to autonomously detect and react to events. SpaceCube systems are currently being developed and proposed for platforms from small CubeSats to larger scale experiments on the ISS and standalone free-flyer missions, and are an ideal fit for cost constrained next generation applications due to the tremendous flexibility (both functional and interface compatibility) provided by the SpaceCube system.

The SpaceCube 3.0 Mini Processor Card represents orders of magnitude increase in performance and capability over typical radiation-hardened processor-based systems and significant advances over the previous generation of SpaceCube technology. The primary processing engine of the card is a radiation-tolerant FPGA. This processor card is very low weight, can fit within the 1U CubeSat form-factor (10cm x 10cm x 10cm), and will be low power. Much of the SpaceCube 2.0 Micro design is incorporated into the SpaceCube 3.0 Mini design. In addition, lessons learned from the SpaceCube 2.0 Mini card are applied. Instead of using a rigid-flex design, the SC3.0 Mini uses a backplane architecture. The processor card plugs into a backplane that routes signals to other card slots. In order to meet the numerous high-speed I/O interfaces required by the latest generation science instruments and applications, a high-density backplane connector is needed. The SpaceCube 3.0 Mini uses a high-density connector to plug into the backplane. The FPGA has flash memory attached that is used for storing algorithm and application code for any hosted soft processors. The processor card also has a nanominiature front-panel connector that adds even more I/O to support instrument interfaces such as Camera Link or SpaceWire. The SpaceCube 3.0 Mini Processor Card features a rad-tolerant FPGA, but the radiation mitigation can be tailored for harsher environments by adding an external rad-hard device that configures and monitors the FPGA over the backplane. The processor card pushes transceiver quantity, routing, and performance for spaceflight. The card is designed to fit in the compact 1U CubeSat form factor. The SpaceCube 3.0 Mini supports scalability by networking multiple processor cards together.

SpaceCube 3.0 features the rad-tolerant multi-core T2080 processor and the rad-tolerant Kintex UltraScale FPGA. The SpaceCube 3.0 Flight Processor Card meets the industry standards in lightweight systems specifications. In addition, the flight processor card can be installed with an expansion card option to allow a tightly-coupled, mission unique card to be installed. The mission unique expansion card can support a variety of capabilities to make SpaceCube 3.0 a powerful instrument processor, including A/D converters, D/A converters, gigabit ethernet, and additional co-processors. Furthermore, the flight processor card is extremely flexible. Algorithms can be implemented in both the Kintex UltraScale FPGA and the T2080 processor. More sequential portions of the algorithm can be implemented quickly and efficiently on the processor, while other algorithms that are more parallel in nature and computation heavy can be accelerated in the FPGA. Using a hybrid system, each can be optimally implemented to take advantage of the features of both. The SpaceCube 3.0 Flight Processor Card design consists mostly of NASA-qualified flight parts and has many features to mitigate radiation effects on the processor system. The processor card can configure the FPGA to scrub configuration memory. In addition, it can monitor the health of the processors, the FPGA, and any coprocessors on the expansion card using watchdog timers. The FPGA uses error detection and multiple redundant copies to mitigate against radiation upsets to the configuration files, which are stored in external non-volatile memories.

The DLC platform is composed of three key components: a NASA-designed field programmable gate array (FPGA) board, a NASA-designed multiprocessor on-a-chip (MPSoC) board, and a proprietary datapath that links the boards to available inputs and outputs to enable high-bandwidth data collection and processing. The inertial measurement unit (IMU), camera, Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL), and Hazard Detection Lidar (HDL) navigation sensors (depicted in the diagram below) are connected to the DLC’s FPGA board. The datapath on this board consists of high-speed serial interfaces for each sensor, which accept the sensor data as input and converts the output to an AXI stream format. The sensor streams are multiplexed into an AXI stream which is then formatted for input to a XAUI high speed serial interface. This interface sends the data to the MPSoC Board, where it is converted back from the XAUI format to a combined AXI stream, and demultiplexed back into individual sensor AXI streams. These AXI streams are then inputted into respective DMA interfaces that provide an interface to the DDRAM on the MPSoC board. This architecture enables real-time high-bandwidth data collection and processing by preserving the MPSoC’s full ability. This sensor datapath architecture may have other potential applications in aerospace and defense, transportation (e.g., autonomous driving), medical, research, and automation/control markets where it could serve as a key component in a high-performance computing platform and/or critical embedded system for integrating, processing, and analyzing large volumes of data in real-time.

The Compact Science Experiment Module (CSEM) provides a suitable experiment platform consisting of an enclosure that contains all the required components to perform science experiments that can house either living biological samples or other samples on both the ground and on the International Space Station (ISS). The invention provides required instrumentation for video capture and data storage, environmental monitoring, inclusive of sensing temperature in degree Celsius, relative humidity as a percentage, carbon dioxide in parts per million and oxygen in percentage format. Data can be stored within the module and retrieved after the experiment or can be transmitted to the ground as for example from the ISS, by connecting to the ISS telemetry system. The Compact Life Science Experiment Module has been fully developed at NASA Ames Research Center and tested on the ISS. In general, fruit fly studies can provide information about the effects of spaceflight at the biochemical, cellular and organismal levels. Using fruit fly spaceflight hardware, researchers are able to investigate the role of spaceflight on development, growth, reproduction, aging, neurobehavioral responses, immunity, heart function, etc. The fruit fly genome matches the human disease genome by almost 77%, and flies have, therefore, been a useful tool for scientists to understand the genetics, and molecular biology of more complex biological systems like humans. The Compact Science Experiment Module is extremely adaptable to other model specimens and samples as well, and has also flown plant experiments on the ISS. The software can be tailored to accommodate different experiment scenarios by adjusting video imaging times, LED light cycles, data storage and telemetry etc.