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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: SpaceCube

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Xilinx FPGAs enhance SpaceCube, a computing platform for payload experiments.

The STS-125 Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on a historic mission in 2009 to service the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). In addition to sending up the hardware and tools required to repair the observatory, the servicing team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center also sent along a complex experimental payload called Relative Navigation Sensors (RNS). The main objective of the RNS payload was to provide real-time image tracking of HST during rendezvous and docking operations.

RNS was a complete success, and was brought to life by four Xilinx® FPGAs tightly packed into one integrated computer called SpaceCube. Designed for space applications that demand extreme processing capabilities, SpaceCube is a compact, reconfigurable, multiprocessor computing platform.

NASA Goddard is infusing this technology into the avionics for future SpaceCube missions, in designs relating to satellite servicing, sophisticated science instrument data processing, CubeSats, and a variety of aircraft payload systems.

Xilinx has provided and continues to provide FPGAs to NASA for use in its SpaceCube reconfigurable on-board processing system. Designed for space applications that demand extreme processing capabilities, SpaceCube is a compact, reconfigurable, multiprocessor computing platform based on Virtex® [space-grade] FPGAs. Currently, next generations with Xilinx FPGAs are under development as the avionics for future missions such as satellite servicing, sophisticated science instrument data processing, CubeSats and a variety of aircraft payload systems. 

- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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