How SpaceVPX is Influencing the Design of Next Generation Spacecraft Avionics O ver the last decade, a government-industry effort to advance the use of modern computer processors and networks in spacecraft avionics systems has quietly been making its own gains in industry adoption and a re-thinking of the way next generation spacecraft electronic systems could be designed in a less costly and more interoperable way. Spacecraft avionics systems are all of the electronic instruments, components, computers and subsystems that control primary spaceflight flight and data communications functionality. Historically, spacecraft OEMs, systems integrators and designers have relied on avionics systems and embedded computer processing architectures that are singularly developed, power hungry and 18 SEPTEMBER 2024 often sharing data over legacy networks between computers that use older processor technology. Over the last decade, the advancement and revision of the SpaceVPX (VITA 78) standard has been the driving force behind removing bandwidth as a constraint for spacecraft avionics systems and establishing an ecosystem of suppliers and designers that develop systems based on re-usable card-sized processing modules. What is SpaceVPX? SpaceVPX is an embedded computing standard based on bridging the VMEBus International Trade Association (VITA) OpenVPX standards to space applications. OpenVPX is a set of embedded computing system standards that are widely used in safety critical aerospace SPACE TECHNOLOGY SPECIAL REPORT (IMAGE: GORODENKOFF)