Reusable and Reliable Flight-Control Software for a Fail-Safe and Cost-Efficient Cubesat Mission: Design and Implementation

• Main Authors: Ibtissam Latachi, Tajjeeddine Rachidi, Mohammed Karim, Ahmed Hanafi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Aerospace
• Subjects: Cubesat; flight software; systems engineering; service-oriented architecture; fault tolerance; FMECA
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/7/10/146

While there is no rigorous framework to develop nanosatellites flight software, this manuscript aimed to explore and establish processes to design a reliable and reusable flight software architecture for cost-efficient student Cubesat missions such as Masat-1. Masat-1 is a 1Unit CubeSat, developed using a systems engineering approach, off-the-shelf components and open-source software tools. It was our aim to use it as a test-bed platform and as an initial reference for Cubesat flight software development in Morocco. The command and data handling system chosen for Masat-1 is a system-on-module-embedded computer running freeRTOS. A real-time operating system was used in order to simplify the real-time onboard management. To ensure software design reliability, modularity, reusability and extensibility, our solution follows a layered service oriented architectural pattern, and it is based on a finite state machine in the application layer to execute the mission functionalities in a deterministic manner. Moreover, a client-server model was elected to ensure the inter-process communication and resources access while using uniform APIs to enhance cross-platform data exchange. A hierarchical fault tolerance architecture was also implemented after a systematic assessment of the Masat-1 mission risks using reliability block diagrams (RBDs) and functional failure mode, effect and criticality analysis (FMECA).