The MISSION project has been selected by the European Commission within the scope of the “Seventh Framework Program for Research” (FP7) in order to support the investigation related to the suitability of AFDX (Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet) network in the space domain. GTD is working together with Astrium SAS, Teletel, University of Surrey and CES in defining a methodology and developing a prototype which will demonstrate that AFDX is suitable to be used as the avionics on-boarded network. Nowadays, space avionics on-board communications are mainly based on MIL-STD-1553 bus and SpaceWire. Due to the increasing number of equipments used in the new generation of satellites, the communication among equipments is becoming more complex to be designed using the current technology based on SpaceWire and MIL-STD-1553. The aeronautical sector solved that problem by applying the IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) concept together with the deterministic network ARINC-664, the so called AFDX network. AFDX network is composed by several components (called end systems) linked together through switches. An AFDX switch is the main component in the network for assuring the determinism of the communications. The AFDX configuration tool will generate the configuration files for end systems, switches and applications given the network topology, and the data exchange among partitions. The network topology describes the components in the network and the connections among them. This input is provided by the system integrator who designs the network topology taking into account the application developers’ requirements. The data exchange describes the communication in the form of messages among end systems in the network. This input is provided by the application developers. The role of GTD in the MISSION project is: • Design of AFDX configuration and traffic profiles for space. In this task GTD will define the input and the output of the configuration tool taking into account all the aspects identified to be particular of the space systems. • Analysis of integration and observability requirements. In this task GTD will evaluate the impact of observability and maintainability aspects to the configuration tool. • Specification of the configuration for the use case. In this task GTD will specify the network topology and the data exchange of the use case, in a language which is understandable by the configuration tool. • Design and development of the configuration tool. In this task GTD will design and develop the configuration tool, and will use the use case network topology and data exchange to generate configuration files for the network components. • Recommendations for maintenance FDIR (Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery). In this task GTD will identify some recommendations related to the specific observability for FDIR purposes. GTD will also lead the establishment, operation and maintenance of the MISSION Special Interest Group (SIG) as a dissemination activity; the SIG will raise awareness and visibility of the MISSION results to a bigger audience. More information is detailed in http://www.mission-project.eu/
