SpaceCube 3.0 Flight Processor Card

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. SpaceCube 3.0 is a family of high-performance reconfigurable systems designed for spaceflight applications requiring on-board processing. SpaceCube 3.0 has greater processing performance over previous generations of SpaceCube. Many proposed missions require next generation on-board processing capabilities to meet specified mission goals. Advanced laser altimeter, radar, lidar, and hyper-spectral instruments are proposed for future missions, and all of these instrument systems require advanced onboard processing capabilities to facilitate data conversion. Besides an increased processing performance need, there is a need for a processor card capable of detecting and reacting to events, producing data products on-board, enabling sensor web multi-platform collaboration, performing on-board lossless data reduction by migrating typical ground-based processing functions on-board. In general, the processing needs of emerging space missions require a stronger flight processor card. SpaceCube 3.0 Flight Processor Card represents an improved flight processing system.