Model-based Toolchain for Core Flight System (cFS) Embedded Systems

The space domain is experiencing a paradigm shift with the rise of micro- and nanosatellites. Historically, launching a satellite required a big financial risk only sustained by governments or big companies. Nowadays, with the miniaturization of satellites, there has been a significant reduction in costs and, as a consequence, a greater opportunity for universities and smaller businesses to launch satellites into space. Companies are taking advantage of this reduction in launch and manufacturing costs to gain a competitive edge by adopting what is known as “Agile Space,” which emphasizes rapid iterations. To facilitate this high development pace, specialized toolchains and frameworks are designed for satellite software development. In this article, we provide a solution to reduce the development time of embedded software systems by ensuring consistency between the design and the implementation. We have integrated the core Flight System, a message-oriented framework developed by NASA based on a publish-subscribe architecture, with TASTE, a toolset from the European Space Agency. This integration combines modeling capabilities and automatic code generation, reducing error-prone repetitive tasks. It ensures consistency across different development stages allowing the end-user to focus on the implementation-specific details. To demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of this model-based toolchain, we present a case study of the UPMSat-2 microsatellite. This study demonstrates how this approach can be used to successfully support the development of embedded software systems.