Flight Software Programming Language Selection: A Security Perspective

摘要

The Department of Defense hoped to solve the "Programming Language Problem" once and for all with Ada. While Ada has experienced its fair share of success, it did not become the "one language to rule them all." This is in part due to the realization that language selection is a nuanced decision with many dimensions, including cost, schedule, staff experience, hardware, and-the focus of this paper-security. We propose a high-level approach for evaluating programming language security based on an international standard (ISO/IEC 24772:2013). Our discussion is focused specifically on flight software for space vehicles. We present experiences with a real flight software system, discussing how a better-defined process around language selection might have precluded certain threats to cyber-resilience.