MIA, a reusable execution platform for space missions. A case study based on an Autonomous Flight Termination Unit.

As interest in space missions and the services they provide grows, the need to develop new platforms that can support the necessities of these services becomes more evident. High cost in time and resources are derived from Flight Software (FSW) development for each space mission. This effort, however, is hardly reusable because the software for each particular mission is tailored to its particular requirements. Thus, traditional FSW is tightly coupled, presents custom interfaces paired with data protocols, requires internal mission knowledge and presents interdependencies between components.

In this new space era, the price dictates the business. In order to increase the reusability, modularity and overall, ease the development of FSW, we have developed the sMart Integrated Avionics (MIA) platform. This platform significantly facilitates the development of space software and applications, such as the one presented as use case in this paper, an Autonomous Flight Termination Unit (AFTU). This autonomous launcher subsystem allows unmanned operations, increasing the maximum launch cadence, thus reducing the cost for space missions, facilitating that access to space is more easily and rapidly achieved by all types of agents.