Student Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering or similar (f/m/x)

ScOSA (Scalable On-board computing for Space Avionics) is an architecture for on-board computers which aims to provide reliability and high-performance processing for spacecraft. This is achieved by using a distributed computer consisting of multiple, heterogeneous processors networked together. Commercial-off-the-shelf processors that provide high performance are complemented with space-grade, radiation-hardened processors to provide reliability. A custom-built middleware allows the processors to monitor each other for faults and provides an abstraction layer, which allows applications to use the computing resources of all nodes simultaneously with minimal concern for the underlying complexities of the distributed system.

With such a computational power available in a space system it is possible to consider the opportunistic use of the platform to run third-party experiments in space by research institutions, companies, universities, or schools. However, these users may not be able to provide experiment software with the quality and reliability expected for critical space missions. Therefore, the ScOSA platform shall provide a way to execute untrusted code in a secure and reliable way by using mixed criticality techniques.

A common technique to enable mixed-criticality is to use the sandboxing or containerization tools available in modern operating systems such as GNU/Linux. Thus, it is possible to confine the execution of processes so they don't interfere with other critical parts of the system. Additionally, it is necessary to provide users with a convenient platform to develop space applications in an agile way, so the time required to upload a space application is reduced while maintaining limited risks.

The thesis includes the following tasks: