Pnpsat-2 SPA Technology Testbed initial results and development status

Abstract-This paper presents the initial results and development status of the AFRL sponsored PnPSat-2 SPA Technology Testbed. The purpose of the testbed is to integrate the next generation of radiation hardened SPA technology and components (hardware and software) with a representative tactical satellite bus structure. The resulting system will be used to demonstrate system performance using Hardware in the Loop (HWIL) techniques for representative (e.g. ORS Tactical) scenarios. AFRL has led two efforts in SPA technology development to both solidify the SPA technology and to demonstrate the benefits. The Plug and Play Satellite (PnPSat) was the first spacecraft to utilize the SPA-S interface standard and demonstrated that rapid development, integration and testing is possible. PnPSat-2 integrates the next generation of radiation hardened SPA components on a larger bus focused on ORS needs. The SPA standard interface has proven critical to the development of design tools that both select (based upon performance requirements) and place (based upon restrictions such as mass and power balance) components. The Satellite Data Model (SDM) method of query and discovery enables the development of modular, single purpose applications that support autonomous flight software in a distributed computing system. The utilization of a data centric architecture (as opposed to component centric) insulates software developers from both specific hardware components and data network topology. The SPA standard interface reduces the need for many specialized test methods resulting in major reductions in development and test time.