Can we use commercially available Software Tools for space applications? The TSC21020E software elements validation activity

摘要

Anyone concerned with space activities has awareness that, due to the small numbers involved in space market, the special space needs will never reach a critical mass able to drive the market. This leads to the fact that the space community shall, on his own, develop ad-hoc products or could try to benefit from the "market standards", accepting off the shelf products. Of course when the latter approach is chosen, some precautions must be taken, in order to be sure that off the shelf products will ensure the requested reliability for space applications and will provide the necessary capabilities.rnThis paper describes the approach that has been chosen inside the Payload Systems Division (Data and Image Processing Section) to provide the TSC21020E (1) [1] [2] users with a consolidated software environment. This "TSC21020E Software Environment" will be based on commercially available software tools plus some add-ins to be developed ad-hoc. The paper, also, presents some (not exhaustive) hardware configurations for the Software Development Factory. The following are the few fundamental rules used to build up the "TSC21020E Software Environment":rn1. Real Time Kernel. Few commercially available Real Time Kernels will be assessed for space use and only one shall be selected.rn2. Software Libraries. The selected Real Time Kernel shall be integrated with libraries comprising both hardware driver interfaces and software common services.rn3. Maintainability. This overall Software Package (i.e. the selected RTK. plus developed libraries) should be put under Configuration Control from ESA.rn4. Development Kit. The development tools shall be those commercially available from Analog Devices or any other third party producer.