Real-Time Solutions at the “Cosmic Edge”

NASA’s Artemis missions aim to return humans to the Moon, establishing a sustainable lunar presence. Advanced technologies for space stations, satellites, human surface mobility, and extravehicular activities (EVA) are critical for enabling astronauts to navigate and operate on the lunar surface. Responding to the harsh environment requires reliable, high-performance systems — and the industry is now shifting to more advanced computing architectures to support that requirement. 

There are many challenges to developing technology for the space industry, including:

• Bridging legacy systems with new, AI-imbued technology and autonomous functionality
• Reducing volume, mass, cost, and power consumption of systems
• Handling project uncertainty given changing priorities (and budgets) for science and military space missions
• Achieving real-time hazard detection, navigation, and operational sustainability
• Integrating mixed-criticality workloads on a single platform 

Addressing these challenges is critical to mission success and advancing space exploration

A New Approach

The IEEE Space Mission Challenges for Information Technology / Space Computing Conference, cosponsored by Wind River earlier this summer, delivered compelling insights into the future of embedded systems for space exploration. We presented on several topics, such as our partnership with Microchip on the High Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) platform; VxWorks®; and native support for NASA’s flight software frameworks, including NASA cFS and F', which ensure seamless integration with existing spaceflight systems.

The conference highlighted a fundamental shift in space computing architecture. Traditional approaches of deploying separate systems for different functions are giving way to consolidated multipurpose platforms that can handle everything from real-time hazard detection to AI-driven navigation systems. This consolidation isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about survival in an environment where size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints are paramount. 

Modern space computing systems seamlessly integrate AI/ML workloads alongside traditional real-time tasks at the edge. As a result, machine learning algorithms can run on general-purpose GPU hardware while maintaining real-time guarantees. That offers new possibilities for autonomous hazard detection, intelligent navigation, and adaptive system management — capabilities essential for operations on the lunar surface and beyond.

The conference reinforced that successful space computing platforms must be inherently scalable and future-proof. The ability to support and de-risk missions at various classification system for payloads (Classes A–D) demonstrates the versatility required for modern space exploration. The industry emphasis on cybersecurity and software interoperability ensures that these platforms can respond to emerging threats and requirements while maintaining the strict certification and reliability standards that space applications demand.

This is our core competency. Wind River has a long history of providing technologies for space missions. 

Wind River’s Technologies for Space

Relevant tools start with VxWorks, a deterministic, priority-based preemptive real-time operating system (RTOS) with low latency and minimal jitter, enabling mission-critical applications to operate reliably. VxWorks also supports AI/ML workloads on general-purpose GPU hardware for modern, scalable systems. It works with NASA’s core Flight System (cFS), a scalable and flexible software architecture to enable real-time data processing for immediate feedback, hazard detection, and decision-making. 

Wind River® Linux, based on the Yocto Project, can be integrated into our Type 1 hypervisor, Wind River Helix™ Virtualization Platform, which enables mixed-criticality systems by consolidating safety-critical and non–safety-critical applications onto a single hardware platform. This ensures isolation, scalability, and efficient resource utilization. 

 The future of space exploration isn’t just about getting there — it’s about staying there, operating safely, learning about the cosmos, and continually pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the harshest environments. 

By Hans Weggeman, Field Application Engineer