Architectural Development of an Advanced EVA Electronic System

An advanced Electronic System for future Extravehicular Activity (EVA) missions (including zero gravity, the lunar surface, and the surface of Mars) is under research and development within the Advanced Life Support Division (ALSD) at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC). As a first step in the development, an optimum system architecture has been derived from an analysis of the projected requirements for these missions.

The open, modular architecture centers around a distributed multiprocessing concept where the major subsystems independently process their own I/O functions and communicate over a common bus. Supervision and coordination of the subsystems is handled by an embedded real-time operating system kernel employing multitasking software techniques. A discussion of how the architecture most efficiently meets the electronic system functional requirements, maximizes flexibility for future development and mission applications, and enhances the reliability and serviceability of the system in these remote, hostile environments is included.