On the Feasibility of Automatically Detecting and Recovering from SEUs in Cyber-Physical Space Systems

The past decade has seen explosive growth in the use of small satellites. As these small, typically short-lived and risk-tolerant platforms are increasingly adopted for spaceflight missions, there has been a growing trend to place more responsibility on the flight software (versus hardware) and an increasing adoption of consumer-grade microprocessors to satisfy this desire for increased processing capability while still minimizing size, weight, and power parameters. These consumer-grade processors, however, are more susceptible to cosmic radiation and the occurrence of single event upsets (SEUs). In this paper, we present an initial exploration into the feasibility of implementing automated detection and recovery mechanisms to mitigate SEUs within these cyber-physical spaceflight systems.