Clyde Space

Off-the-Shelf Onboard CubeSat Software (CS-OBSW)

Our Onboard Software (OBSW) product combines our component-based OBSW framework with UKube-1 heritage software components developed and licensed in collaboration with Bright Ascension Ltd. CS-OBSW provides an excellent solution for the command and data handling needs of the next generation of highly-capable CubeSats. This product will enable you to rapidly and cheaply produce robust software for your CubeSat whatever subsystems you choose, or, with a Clyde Space platform, get a complete solution out-of-the-box. We are also able to offer bespoke solutions based on this software, letting you focus on the aspects of the mission that are most important to you.  The UKube-1 mission, flying our onboard software, has been peer reviewed by Astrium (UK) Ltd and UK Space Agency.

Key Benefits

Rapidity

Rather than writing software from scratch, our software framework provides you with most of the functionality you need off-the-shelf. This allows you to focus on producing or procuring code to cover the unique parts of your mission. Whatever development you do, cross-platform support means most development and testing can be done on desktop PCs without access to flight hardware or engineering models.On the ground side, we include a software library which can form the basis of your mission control software and graphical test application software which will provide telemetry monitoring and telecommand to support your development and AIT activities.

Flexibility

Our component-based architecture means that software can be assembled from a library of existing, validated code and supplemented with new components to introduce new capabilities.
This flexibility extends into orbit, with a high level of reconfigurability and automation to cope with evolving mission needs and provide plenty of troubleshooting options.

Portability

The software was designed with portability in mind. An abstraction and layer and flexible build system make it straightforward to add support for new operating systems and architectures.

Robustness

Our heavily tested, proven code is developed to MISRA-C standards for safe, reliable embedded systems. Our scheduling system facilitates the development of robust, verifiable task schedules allowing you to be sure your onboard software will meet strict real-time requirements.

Ease-of use

We recognise the importance of good documentation which is why you will find comprehensive API reference documentation, a full user manual and thoroughly documented source code.
Interoperability.

Wherever possible we adopt recognised and mature international standards to promote interoperability and portability. Our software uses CCSDS standards for communications and for I/O handling on board giving you the most options for the operation of your spacecraft and adaptation of existing software to CS-OBSW framework.

Technical Features

Our library of validated components provides you with most of the functionality you need off-the-shelf:

• Telemetry sampling, pooling, aggregation and storage
• Event dispatching and logging
• Full automation with operational schedules
• Onboard scripting by uploadable, interpreted scripts
• ‘Out-of-the-box' support for ALL Clyde Space branded CubeSat subsystems as well as subsystems from some third parties (see the UKube-1 mission overview for more details of the on-board subsystems used)

The underlying framework features:

• OS and hardware abstraction based on CCSDS standards for portability and cross-platform development
• TM/TC based on CCSDS standards
• Spacelink emulation for software simulation
• Graphical ground support software and library assists with development, debugging and AIT
• The framework supports FreeRTOS and Linux on ARM and i386 platforms with more planned.

Using the Software

All software components and framework services are highly configurable, both during development and flight. We recognise the importance of good documentation which is why you will find comprehensive API reference documentation, a full user manual and thoroughly documented source code.Our heavily tested, proven code is developed to MISRA-C standards for safe, reliable embedded systems. Our scheduling system facilitates the development of robust, verifiable task schedules allowing you to be sure your onboard software will meet strict real-time requirements.

Licensing

Licensing is on a per-spacecraft basis, which allows you to use as many concurrent instances of the software as you need during the development and operation of a single spacecraft. This covers flight hardware, engineering models, developer PCs and functional simulators. To give you the most flexibility we provide full source for onboard software elements.

1. CubeSat On-Board Software

   For the command and data-handling needs of highly-capable...

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