The CPUs of Spacecraft

[Grey Havoc]

I thought this would fit in well here: http://www.cpushack.com/space-craft-cpu.html

 

[surfinblackbird]

I got a couple links on this subject; it's pretty interesting.

http://history.nasa.gov/computers/contents.html
"Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience" This book is pretty much the bible for NASA computing up to the 80ies; it's got fantastic information that i haven't found anywhere else

http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
Lots of info on the Apollo flight computer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrwpXEiTDVk&feature=related
"Computers of NASA" 60ies film

http://www.synova.com/proc/mg5.html
This is the vendor page for the Mongoose-V; wich is a modern radiation-hardened space computer (i shit you not). if i was rich i would custom build a nuclear-war-proof PC from one

http://web.mit.edu/slava/space/computers.htm
Russian space program computers especially the "Argon" family

http://klabs.org/history/history_docs/sp-8070/intro/intro.htm
Old book on early space computers

http://web.mit.edu/slava/space/essays/essay-tiapchenko1.htm
Essay on the computer interfaces and display systems of Soviet spacecraft

I hope this will be interesting!

 

[tiikki]

One of the laboratories doing component testing for ESA is located 3 stories below my office in Jyväskylä University. I'm personally not involved on this but I know a bit how they do the testing.

Our little accelerator is capable of producing wide range of particle beams, which can be used to simulate cosmic radiation. The only problem is, that the beam is not powerful enough. The energy loss of radiation in the bulk material of the components is well understood so by just "shaving" excess material from the bulk material of the chip we can tune the energy in to the correct range. In one course we were given one of those shaved chips (memory chip in this case) and we had to write data on it, but it into the beam, check errors in data, and then repeat with higher radiation and then produce report about the chip.

Here is link to the group doing this:
https://www.jyu.fi/fysiikka/en/research/accelerator/ensar.html
The RADEF part is about the laboratory.

 

[keeranadams]

I got a couple links on this subject; it's pretty interesting.

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NASA

history.nasa.gov

Lots of info on the Apollo flight computer

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrwpXEiTDVk&feature=related

"Computers of NASA" 60ies film

http://www.synova.com/proc/mg5.html

This is the vendor page for the Mongoose-V; wich is a modern radiation-hardened space computer (i shit you not). if i was rich i would custom build a nuclear-war-proof PC from one

Thanks a lot for this links!

 

[publiusr]

It wasn't that long ago that the 486 was space-rated...IIRC.

 

[Grey Havoc]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99pXlcakHdE

From the comments thread (other interesting comments there as well):

Chris Steward​

1 day ago
A lot of the portable computers that flew in space ended up back on the ground being used by NASA ground personnel. In 1998 I was working for IBM in their call centre in Toronto. I found myself talking to a NASA administrator about a repair to his Thinkpad 760. It had been on the Mir space station and was in the module that got decompressed when the supply ship collided with it. The only damage that exposure to hard vacuum caused was the liquid crystal in the LCD had turned to mush. The Thinkpad came back to earth and ended up on this admin's desk connected to an external monitor.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Space grade electronics: How NASA Juno survives near Jupiter

Space missions that remind us space exploration is hard.

blog.jatan.space

EDIT: Backup link to the 2018 Planetary Society version of the article.

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.analog.com/en/thought-leadership/challenges-for-electronic-circuits-in-space-applications.html

 

[publiusr]

Whoops!

Cyber vulnerability discovered in networks used by spacecraft, aircraft and energy generation systems

A major vulnerability in a networking technology widely used in critical infrastructures such as spacecraft, aircraft, energy generation systems and industrial control systems was exposed by researchers at the University of Michigan and NASA.

techxplore.com