What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
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What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
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Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#2“They use Chromium and JavaScript for the Dragon 2 flight interface.“
This is the most interesting part for me being a web dev! How likely do you think this is?
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#3I’m now curious about their memory structure, are they just using off the shelf multibit ECC memory?
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#4“They use Chromium and JavaScript for the Dragon 2 flight interface.“ This is the most interesting part for me being a web dev! How likely do you think this is?
Just because they do, doesn’t mean you should.
I’m running an automotive firmware project at the moment and there are such things as software integrity levels, and each time you add something to the stack you create quite a large amount of testing and validation and process that needs to be followed.
And it’s pretty much impossible to take something existing like Chromium and certify it to what you need. The architecture is wrong. The process is wrong. There is a lack of formal requirement traceability. Many other issues.
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#5I’m now curious about their memory structure, are they just using off the shelf multibit ECC memory?
You might need multibit ECC also in CPU caches. Pretty much all CPU caches have ECC, but no idea how large of an error they can fix.
Then again, probably control logic is running on something radiation hardened and GUI layer (with some redundant hardware) can be easily rebooted as necessary.
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#6“They use Chromium and JavaScript for the Dragon 2 flight interface.“ This is the most interesting part for me being a web dev! How likely do you think this is?
Just because they do, doesn’t mean you should. I’m running an automotive firmware project at the moment and there are such things as software integrity levels, and each time you add something to the stack you create quite a large amount of testing and validation and process that needs to be followed. And it’s pretty much impossible to take something existing like Chromium and certify it to what you need. The architec…
But mixed-criticality systems are quite normal in many deployments nowadays, especially with the advent of virtualization and hypervisors you should be able to run safety critical and non-safety critical functions at the same time on the same SoC.
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because they do, doesn’t mean you should. I’m running an automotive firmware project at the moment and there are such things as software integrity levels, and each time you add something to the stack you create quite a large amount of testing and validation and process that needs to be followed. And it’s pretty much impossible to take something existing like Chromium and certify it to what you need. The architec…
But mixed-criticality systems are quite normal in many deployments nowadays, especially with the advent of virtualization and hypervisors you should be able to run safety critical and non-safety critical functions at the same time on the same SoC.
Heresy.
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#8Interesting that it’s three identical processors running he same software. I remember just the automated Vienna central train station used a pair of machines, x86 and SPARC, one running the logic in a procedural language (Chill) and the other running in a logic language (Prolog). They didn’t want both processors to share any code, and therefore potentially the same bug.
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#9I’ve read a bit about how strict the space shuttle coders were. I wonder what they think about the code running this spacecraft.
https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff
https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch4-5.html
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/flyfeature...
Re: What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
#10Heaven help them if the Javascript they run depends on npm components.
When I read about these multiply redundant systems I always want to know what provisions are made for restarting or shutting down a part that is producing wrong answers. Can the Power device reset the machine whose instructions lost the vote? If the two cores disagree, do they both reset?
Also, what is done for procedures that must not be interrupted? E.g., once de-orbit is initiated, if the microcontrollers get no new instructions, do they have enough to re-enter safely? Or do they need updates whenever something is supposed to happen?