Low-Power, Fault-Tolerant, Hybrid Instrument Processor

Commercial space systems incorporate many consumer electronics and components that would not meet internal NASA standards and requirements, especially on low-cost CubeSat systems. To compensate for reliability concerns in consumer CubeSat systems, NASA Goddard has developed Modular Architecture for a Resilient Extensible SmallSat (MARES), a catalog of reliable electronic slices created to the NASA CubeSat Card Specification (CS2), that allows missions to address challenging radiation requirements in a CubeSat size. This project seeks to develop a very low-power, hybrid processing slice for the architecture needed for some CubeSat missions and instrument payloads

This project can be incorporated into many mission designs fulfilling varied roles. Significantly, it can act as an ultra-low power C&DH (command and data handling) processor, a lightweight instrument-processor backend, and finally a reliable monitor or module to a high-risk commercial component device such as AI microchips. Additionally, the "Smart Module" system follows the NASA Goddard has developed the CubeSat Card Specification, also known as CS2, to provide a reference template to integrate the low-power processor as a monitor to a 1U card area that is reserved for mission- or application-specific design needs.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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