Potential NASA Commercial Applications: As the CubeSat markets and their applications increase the need for similar components will continue to increase to keep these projects affordable. This proposal leverages the similarities in most CubeSats by applying a modular approach to the spacecraft main electronics, the motherboard. By designing this Compute Module (CM) approach NASA can fulfill the needs of any CubeSat mission. The real power of this modular design concept is in giving the engineer as many design options as possible with a single development environment. By providing a CM that is self-contained and has a standard interface, the engineer can add a radiation hardened, secure, and robust computation element to any subsystem or payload. This modular approach shall significantly reduce development time and increase reliability. Future deep space missions such as NASA's SIMPLEx or Biosentinal will not be capable without radiation hardened electronics such as these.
More »