RadSat - Radiation Tolerant SmallSat Computer System

This paper describes the development of a SmallSat computer system that provides increased tolerance to radiation induced faults through a novel architecture implemented on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). The computer system provides increased reliability, computational performance, and power efficiency at a fraction of the cost of existing radiation-hardened computer systems. This computer technology has had its technical readiness level steadily increased over the past 8 years through a variety of tests and flight demonstrations. These include high energy particle bombardment at the Texas A&M Radiation Effects Facility, 8 high altitude balloon flights to 30km, and a 2014 sounding rocket flight to 120km. The technology was selected by the NASA SmallSat Technology Partnership program in 2013 as one of the cross-cutting technologies that will enable advanced computing in small satellites and is being matured for even more rigorous flight demonstrations. These include a second sounding rocket flight to an altitude of 300km followed by a 6 month low earth orbit demonstration on the International Space Station, both in 2016. This computer technology was selected by the 2015 NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative for a long term stand-alone mission in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in 2017