Abstract
The Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) Software and Ground Segment Section (SGS) has the mandate to develop innovative emerging software and on-board satellite and ground segment computer technologies. To that end, there is an ongoing development of a simulation environment to test COTS (Commercial-Of-The-Shelf) technologies. There are severe cost constraints in all aspects of many space missions due to the limited return on investment and scarce commercialization opportunities that come with many science missions. There is an opportunity to explore the innovative implementation of COTS technologies to reduce the mission cost and maximize performance available from COTS components. However, using COTS technologies in the space environment has ist constraints and therefore designing a spacecraft mission has to involve some new techniques that allow implementation of these components and minimize the risk of failure. The goal of our project is to develop a simulation environment, itself using COTS components, and then to allow the seamless integration of various components to test spacecraft mission concepts. For example, one of the aspects of using COTS processors in space is to protect them from the radiation environment. The current state of the simulation tests an innovative software EDAC (Error Detection and Correction) package and a redundant processor configuration to investigate protection against the effects of radiation and other failures on a generic mission. It also includes the capability to test formation-flying concepts that have the potential to revolutionize cost reduction efforts for space missions and to enable new space applications. This paper describes the simulation environment in detail and illustrates some of the technologies being tested for possible future space missions. The paper concludes with a look at the future development of the simulation environment and possible benefits of its use as well as the lessons learned to date.