NASA hires Microchip Technology to develop a high-performance spaceflight computing processor – Aerospace News – Aerospace News

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has selected Microchip Technology, of Chandler, Arizona, to develop a high-performance spaceflight computing (HPSC) processor that will provide at least 100 times the computational power of spacecraft. current spaceflight computers. This key capability would power all kinds of future space missions, from planetary exploration to lunar and Martian surface missions. “This next-generation spaceflight processor will have a tremendous impact on our future space missions and even technologies here on Earth,” said Niki Werkheiser, director of technology maturation within the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. NASA in Washington. “This effort will amplify the capabilities of existing spacecraft and enable new ones, and could ultimately be used by virtually all future space missions, all benefiting from more capable flight computing.” Microchip will build, design and deliver the HPSC processor for three years, with the goal of using the processor in future lunar and planetary exploration missions. Microchip’s processor architecture will significantly improve overall computing efficiency for these missions by allowing computing power to be scalable, depending on mission needs. The design will also be more reliable and more fault tolerant. The processor will enable spacecraft computers to perform calculations up to 100 times faster than today’s state-of-the-art space computers. As part of NASA’s ongoing business partnership efforts, the work will be carried out under a $50 million fixed-price contract, with Microchip contributing significant research and development costs to complete the project. “We are pleased that NASA has selected Microchip as its partner to develop the next generation space-qualified computing processor platform.” said Babak Samimi, corporate vice president of Microchip’s Communications business unit. “We are making a joint investment with NASA in a new reliable and transformative computing platform. It will offer end-to-end Ethernet networking, advanced artificial intelligence/machine learning processing, and connectivity support while offering unprecedented performance gains, fault tolerance, and low-power security architecture. We will foster an industry-wide ecosystem of single board computing partners anchored in the HPSC processor and complementary space-qualified total system solutions from Microchip to benefit a new generation of mission: critical edge computing designs optimized for size and weight.