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A new Space Act Agreement (SAA) between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and BAE Systems* will enable the company to build a new application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design for Goddard’s SpaceWire link-and-switch (“router”) technology using technical support and consultation from Goddard researchers. Integrating the SpaceWire router functionality into BAE's computer board design will benefit NASA's missions as well as other aerospace organizations by lowering the cost, required power, and number of parts needed to integrate the technology’s functionality into space-based computer systems. The collaborative effort also benefits NASA by supporting the standardization of the SpaceWire router design.

Benefits of Technology Transfer

• BAE Systems may gain competitive advantage by integrating the SpaceWire router functionality into its onboard computer system, making the computer desirable to NASA, the military, and other U.S. aerospace organizations that desire the latest SpaceWire functionality without the added expense of purchasing a stand-alone SpaceWire bridge to integrate the technology.
  
  
• The larger U.S. aerospace market will benefit from the availability of a new computer board design with native SpaceWire router functionality.
  
  
• Future NASA missions, particularly satellite missions, will benefit from the new SpaceWire-based computer board, providing a main processor that has a smaller size and fewer parts and uses less power than currently available designs.

BAE Systems is a global company engaged in the development, delivery, and support of advanced defense and aerospace systems. With major operations across five continents, the company has customers and partners in more than 100 countries and 88,000 employees worldwide. The company delivers a full range of products and services for air, land, and naval forces as well as advanced electronics, information technology solutions, and customer support services. With annual sales exceeding US$22 billion, BAE is the fourth largest defense company in the world and the largest defense company in Europe.

The SpaceWire specification is a set of serial links that describe a network fabric used to move information defined in packets. Goddard’s SpaceWire router is a unique implementation of the specification that enables avionics computers to communicate seamlessly at varying data rates (2 Mbps to more than 200 Mbps), minimizing interconnects. The communication allows resources to be distributed and provides for redundancy across spaceflight applications.

Developed in beta form in 2000, the protocol standard was released in January 2003 and was first implemented at NASA on the SWIFT mission*, a gamma ray burst-alert telescope launched in November 2004.  It was later adopted by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)*, which further developed the network version of SpaceWire.

Building on the growing popularity and move toward standardization of the SpaceWire specification, BAE first collaborated with Goddard in 2002 on the design of a SpaceWire ASIC, a chip that was used as a peripheral or stand-alone bridge between existing space electronics and the new SpaceWire functionality. This ASIC was integrated as a separate chip on NASA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites R Series Spacecraft (GOES-R)* Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument as well as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)* single-board computer. Unlike this first ASIC designed by BAE, the current effort will result in an ASIC that will provide native SpaceWire functionality on the company’s RAD 750™*, a leading space-based computer for U.S. aerospace markets. This new ASIC will connect any new or existing chip or functionality with SpaceWire, making all future space computer boards using it SpaceWire-compatible. By replacing the stand-alone ASIC with a native ASIC, the collaborative effort will decrease the part count, ongoing costs, and power requirements for the space computer board.

Goddard first began a technology transfer relationship with BAE in 2002 with an SAA enabling the company’s first SpaceWire ASIC design. Since that time, Goddard researchers and Innovative Partnership Program (IPP) Office personnel have kept in close contact with BAE, with ongoing discussions with the company’s engineers and management to help understand their current and future product plans involving SpaceWire. When the company decided in 2006 to integrate the SpaceWire router implementation natively into its new space computer board design, they engaged with Goddard researchers and IPP Office staff in an effort to begin working with the technology as quickly as possible. The IPP Office staff worked with BAE and Goddard researchers to develop a benefits statement and statement of work, followed by a very aggressive agreement schedule. Working together, all parties were able to put the agreement in place in less than one month, keeping BAE on schedule for its new design.

BAE expects to finish its new SpaceWire ASIC design by early 2008. Following the design, the company will integrate the technology into its new computer board and begin extensive testing. If testing goes as planned, the company should have working boards available for NASA missions and other aerospace companies within about two years. NASA missions being formed now may choose to use BAE’s new processor board at that time. In the meantime, Goddard researchers expect new SpaceWire-based designs and updates will continue to be of interest to BAE and may fuel future agreements. Goddard’s IPP Office will continue a dialogue with the company to maintain its successful technology transfer relationship.

Contact

Innovative Partnerships Program Office
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Phone: (301) 286-5810
E-mail: techtransfer@gsfc.nasa.gov