NDLI: Case study of the Space Shuttle cockpit avionics upgrade software

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Ferguson, R.C. Thompson, H.C.
Copyright Year	2005
Description	Author affiliation: United Space Alliance LLC, Houston, TX, USA (Ferguson, R.C.; Thompson, H.C.)
Abstract	The purpose of the Space Shuttle Cockpit Avionics Upgrade project was to reduce crew workload and improve situational awareness. The upgrade was to augment the Shuttle avionics system with new hardware and software. An early version of this system was used to gather human factor statistics in the Space Shuttle Motion Simulator of the Johnson Space Center for one month by multiple teams of astronauts. The results were compiled by NASA Ames Research Center and it was determined that the system provided a better than expected increase in situational awareness and reduction in crew workload. Even with all of the benefits of the system, NASA cancelled the project towards the end of the development cycle. A major success of this project was the validation of the hardware architecture and software design. This was significant because the project incorporated new technology and approaches for the development of human rated space software. This paper serves as a case study to document knowledge gained and techniques that can be applied for future space avionics development efforts. The major technological advances were the use of reflective memory concepts for data acquisition and the incorporation of Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) products in a human rated space avionics system. The infused COTS products included a real time operating system, a resident linker and loader, a display generation tool set, and a network data manager. Some of the successful design concepts were the engineering of identical outputs in multiple avionics boxes using an event driven approach and inter-computer communication, a reconfigurable data acquisition engine, the use of dynamic linking at runtime, and the use of a dynamic bus bandwidth allocation algorithm. Other significant experiences captured were the use of prototyping to reduce risk, and the correct balance between Object Oriented and Functional based programming.
File Size	376392
File Format	PDF
ISBN	0780393074
DOI	10.1109/DASC.2005.1563454
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2005-10-30
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Space shuttles Aerospace electronics Space technology Hardware NASA Data acquisition Human factors Statistics Object oriented modeling Computer architecture
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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