New Millennium Space Technology 8 Dependable Multiprocessor: Technology Validation Approach And Results

Funded by the NASA New Millennium Program Space Technology 8 project since 2004, the Dependable Multiprocessor project takes a major step toward NASA's long-held desire to take advantage of high-performance, commercial-off-the-shelf technology in onboard processing solutions for space applications. A Dependable Multiprocessor system is a cluster of high-performance, commercial-off-the-shelf processors connected with a high-speed interconnect and operating under the control of a radiation-hardened system controller executing platform- and technology-independent fault tolerant middleware. This platform- and technology-independent middleware is Dependable Multiprocessor technology and represents a significant paradigm shift. For applications that only need to be radiation tolerant, Dependable Multiprocessor technology allows the user to employ 10 to 100 times the processing capability of current radiation-hardened, software-based processing systems. Dependable Multiprocessor technology is software-implemented and platform and technology independent, thus enabling space missions to employ current commercial-off-the-shelf devices as opposed to radiation-hardened technologies that are two or three generations behind the state of the art. To validate this technology, models were developed that employed the results from component-level radiation testing, software-based fault injection, and system-level profiling. These models showed that the Dependable Multiprocessor system's performance satisfied most of the requirements specified by NASA's technology review board.