SpaceCube Mini Solid State Data Recorder (SSDR)

NASA's SpaceCube Mini SSDR is a 3.5”x3.5” card designed for use in CubeSats and SmallSats. The SSDR uses a radiation-tolerant field programmable gate array (FPGA) that interfaces with two independently controlled and powered banks of NAND Flash storage, providing up to 12 Terabits of storage capacity. The card includes multiple SpaceWire nodes and multi-gigabit transceivers for commanding and data transfer, various error prevention and correction mechanisms including Reed-Solomon encoding/decoding and data randomization schemes, and depacketizers/packetizers for handling data in CCSDS format. This NASA technology is innovative in its combination of high reliability for harsh radiation environments (e.g., geostationary orbit, lunar orbit and surface, etc.) with high-speed data transfer capabilities (400+ MB/s write, 600+ MB/s read) in a compact form factor. The design allows for selective population of NAND Flash modules and independent control of memory banks, enabling power optimization through features like single-bank operation. The card integrates with a modular architecture system in which multiple CubeSat-sized cards (e.g., processors, GPS, etc.) can be mixed and matched to meet specific mission requirements. The SSDR card includes radiation-hardened voltage regulators to ensure safe operation in space environments. The SSDR is ideal for small form factor satellites with some combination of the following requirements: (a) ability to store large amounts of data generated by high-performance detectors and sensors for extended durations (e.g., in environments without nearby relay capabilities), (b) ability to read and write data with high throughput, and (c) ability to operate in harsh radiation environments. It is fully compatible with NASA’s CubeSat Card Specification (CS2) and NASA’s SpaceCube v3.0 mini processing card, which is also available for licensing. Upcoming SmallSat missions at NASA and in the commercial space sector require highly performant, miniaturized, and radiation tolerant components. One need is for data recorders capable of storing large quantities of data generated by advanced sensors for extended durations. Commercially available SmallSat form factor data recorders generally either have poor reliability in high radiation environments or do not provide the high-speed read/write data rates necessary for high-performance detectors and sensors. This limits data collection ability, which also limits the ability to perform on-board processing. To meet data recording needs for SmallSat missions in harsh radiation orbits and environments (e.g., GEO, polar, lunar, etc.) innovators at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have developed a radiation tolerant single-board solid-state data recorder (SSDR) card. This miniaturized (3.5” x 3.5”) card is configured for use in a 1U CubeSat payload form factor multi-purpose architecture, enabling high density data storage and on-board processing for a variety of data-intensive SmallSat missions.