SpaceCube

For free-flying cube satellites, see CubeSat.

SpaceCube is a family of high-performance reconfigurable systems designed^[when?] for spaceflight applications requiring on-board processing. The SpaceCube was developed by engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.^[1] The SpaceCube 1.0 system is based on Xilinx's Virtex-4 commercial FPGAs. The debut mission of the SpaceCube 1.0, Hubble Servicing Mission 4, was the first time Xilinx's Virtex-4 FPGAs flew in space.^[2]

The Hubble Space Telescope being lifted out of the payload bay of Atlantis before being released back into space.

SpaceCube aboard MISSE-7

Missions

• Hubble Servicing Mission 4: The SpaceCube was the brains of the Relative Navigation Sensors autonomous docking experiment that was intended to run in parallel with the astronaut controlled docking of the Hubble Space Telescope.^[3] RNS met its stated goals.^[4]
• MISSE-7: The SpaceCube was attached to the outside of the ISS during an EVA on Space Shuttle Mission STS-129 (Nov 2009). It provides an on-orbit test platform for demonstrating innovative radiation hardened by software techniques. It is mounted on the NRL's MISSE7 experiment which is attach to an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier.^[5][6]

Family overview

• SpaceCube 1.0: Based on Xilinx's Virtex-4 commercial FPGAs.
• SpaceCube 1.5: Intermediate version of SpaceCube 2.0. Based on Xilinx's Virtex-5 commercial FPGAs. Scheduled to fly on sounding rocket flight in the fall of 2010.^[7]
• SpaceCube 2.0: Currently^[when?] under development with over $1 million in funding.^[7] The SpaceCube 2.0 system is based around Xilinx's new radiation-hardened Virtex-5 FPGA.^{[7][8][needs update]}

Awards

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center SpaceCube team earned an honorable mention for the 2009 "IRAD Innovator of the Year" award.^[9]

On-board science data processing achievements

• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) results:
  • 6 to 1 loss-less data volume reduction on SAR Nadir Altimetry dataset.^[10]
  • 165x data volume reduction on SAR mapping dataset.^[10]