TOP FOCUS AUGUST 2018 - WA3000 eMagazin

Enabling the Final Frontier

It used to be the case that space was beyond reach to all but the richest governments and a handful of private enterprises. Today, opportunities in space look very different. Commercial space activities have taken off, driven in large part by greater functionality in smaller packages. With faster time-to-market, better size, weight, and power features at lower price points, and lower launch costs, new business models and significant venture funding are finding their way to commercial space applications. The solution components presented are also suitable for applications in digitization and automation.

Wind River products support an end-to-end solution for satellite systems

The challenge

With segment growth and new use cases, new problems and technical concerns begin to emerge. One new key concern is security. No longer can “security through obscurity” be assumed a successful strategy. While advancements in on-orbit and launch technologies have lowered the potential for catastrophic on-orbit failure, security risks across the complete end-to-end space/ground system allow for new failure scenarios. Integrators need to look at security as it relates to the entire end-to-end system throughout the system lifecycle and not simply as a patchwork of various technologies stitched together from various suppliers evaluated at the time of launch or in a pre-launch design review. Another concern is lifetime cost. Some new-generation technologies have lower up-front costs than their predecessors, which is evident during system design and development. However, support and maintenance costs over the entire product lifecycle often become an afterthought to be solved by an undefined future operations team. At the same time, many of the traditional challenges associated with earlier space programs still hold true. Due to the costs associated with launch, satellite engineers are held to hard requirements that must be met the first time and every time.