Increasing flight software reuse with OpenSatKit

Abstract

In January 2015 the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) released the core Flight System (cFS) as open source under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Open Source Agreement (NOSA) license. The cFS is based on flight software (FSW) developed for 12 spacecraft spanning nearly two decades of effort and it can provide about a third of the FSW functionality for a lowearth orbiting scientific spacecraft. The cFS is a FSW framework that is portable, configurable, and extendable using a product line deployment model. However, the components are maintained separately so the user must configure, integrate, and deploy them as a cohesive functional system. This can be very challenging especially for organizations such as universities with minimal FSW development experience that are building CubeSats. This paper describes the OpenSatKit [2] that was developed to address the cFS deployment challenges and to serve as a cFS training platform for new users.OpenSatKit provides a fully functional out-of-the box software system that includes NASA's cFS, Ball Aerospace's command and control system COSMOS, and a NASA dynamic simulator called 42. The kit is freely available since all of the components have been released as open source. The kit runs on a Linux platform, includes eight cFS applications, several kit-specific applications, and built in demos illustrating how to use key application features. It also includes the software necessary to port the cFS to a Raspberry Pi and instructions for configuring COSMOS to communicate with the target. All of the demos and test scripts can be rerun unchanged with the cFS running on the Raspberry Pi.OpenSatKit can serve two significant architectural roles that will further help the adoption of the cFS and help create a community of users that can share assets. First, the kit is being enhanced to automate the integration of applications with the goal of creating a virtual cFS 'App Store'. Second, a platform certification test suite can be developed that would allow users to verify the port of the cFS to a new platform. This paper will describe the current state of these efforts and future plans.

Application of NASA core Flight System to Telescope Control Software for 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Observation

“…The cFS helps develop platform-independent software through the functional abstraction of hardware and operating systems and provides an API for its core services. McComas et al (2016) show a layered software architecture that consists of stacked abstraction libraries, the core flight executive (cFE), and applications that are dynamic link libraries. The cFS can run applications with plug-and-play capabilities in parallel and support their communications on a software bus using the message queue.…”

“…It relies on two standards: the Java Message Service (JMS, "for reliable message-based communication") and Open Systems Gateway initiative (OSGi, "a Javabased framework that enables loosely coupled services to dynamically discover each other and collaborate to form applications"). McComas et al (2016) and McComas (2018) presented the core Flight System (cFS) that NASA has developed into a platform-independent and reusable software framework for real-time systems, including satellite systems, by integrating software used in past missions. The cFS has a layered, portable architecture that enables developers use the architecture in user development environments or desktop environments.…”

Mission analysis of nanosatellite constellations with OpenSatKit

“…OpenSatKit is a multi-faceted platform that combines three independent programmes [2]: Ball Aerospace Corporation's COSMOS command and control platform for embedded systems; NASA's core Flight System (cFS), a platform and project-independent, reusable software framework; and NASA's 42, a comprehensive, general-purpose simulation of attitude and trajectory dynamics and control which can be applied to numerous spacecraft composed of multiple rigid or flexible bodies [3].…”

A Highly Modular Software Framework for Reducing Software Development Time of Nanosatellites

“…Having quite the flight heritage, the NASA cFS framework [9] is a strong candidate for satellites in general. However, it is still technically challenging for new users to configure and deploy due to its embedded history with big complex satellites, and thus lacks the aforementioned simplicity [20]. Also, as a governmental organization, it is difficult for NASA to implement an open-source product business model [21].…”

“…Also, as a governmental organization, it is difficult for NASA to implement an open-source product business model [21]. Although the OpenSatKit [20] was created to lessen these problems, it introduces its own learning curve with additional complexity from two other bundled tools, the COSMOS and the 42 Simulator. F prime by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is another open-source framework by NASA [11].…”