13/12/2024
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A key element of ESA’s role as Europe’s space agency is the expansion of space knowhow, by encouraging new actors into the field. Case in point: a Polish software company previously specialising in smartphone apps took on the challenge of designing the operating system for the main instrument of Proba-3 – an ambitious double spacecraft mission to reveal secrets of the Sun’s fiery atmosphere, the corona.
Launched on 5 December 2024, the two satellites making up Proba-3 will manoeuvre in space so that one eclipses the solar disk, allowing sustained observations of the surrounding solar corona by the mission’s main instrument: the Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun, or ASPIICS for short.
“Proba-3 is a relatively small experimental mission, with involvement of newer ESA Member States, including Romania, Czech Republic and Poland,” explains ESA’s Proba-3 project manager Damian Galano. “Enabling companies to gain space experience and new capabilities is part of our remit. So while an established prime contractor might have adapted an existing set of software for the ASPIICS instrument, we ended up with software written from scratch by a new entrant into the space sector – and it worked out very well for us.”
From smartphones to a space computer
Poland’s N7 Mobile began as a software company specialising in applications for mobile devices such as entertainment, music streaming and payment systems, but set up a small space division in the middle of the last decade.
“We had an existing interest in the field,” explains Michał Mosdorf of N7 Space. “Members of our team with some experience of educational CubeSat projects, such as the first Polish satellite PW-Sat 1, as well as ESA Education’s Rexus/Bexus, which gives students the chance to fly payloads in sounding rockets or high-altitude balloons. Our team also contributed to space missions such as SolarOrbiter and BritePL. Space was not entirely new to us, and we wanted to explore what we might do commercially. So we joined the ASPIICS consortium led by Space Research Centre in Poland.”
That was the start of ten years sustained effort: the extremely sophisticated ASPIICS has its own on-board computer, and N7 Space’s software was needed to oversee its operations, receiving and processing telecommands, processing, storing and returning mission data as well as – crucially – helping to keep the two Proba-3 satellites aligned to keep the Sun in eclipse and its corona in view for hours at a time.
Over 12 000 hours went into finalising the ASPIICS software. As Michał explains: “It’s a far cry from software engineering for mobile apps, a very different kind of challenge. That kind of app might be active on a million clients, across hundreds of different devices. If a problem occurs, we can respond and fix it. For spaceflight we have a single client where we can’t suddenly fix issues during spaceflight, so the formalities are understandably quite rigorous. We invested a lot of time in creating a representative simulator allowing us to work on the software long before the complete instrument was integrated.”
Meeting space specifications
Among the challenges for N7 Space was adapting to the space sector’s ways of working. This includes the use of ESA’s particular hardware ecosystem, embodied in the space-optimised LEON-3 ‘system on a chip’ microprocessor, not found in other markets.
Michał adds: “We also had to become compliant with European Coordination for Space Standardisation, ECSS processes, which is the generally agreed rulebook on how all aspects of space engineering are carried out, including software design and testing. This is quite a formal process in terms of verification, traceability and code quality.”
Working with ESA held some distinct advantages too. N7 Space was able to make use of formal tools available in the TASTE environment, which is a set of open source, state-of-the-art software development tools promoted by ESA, dedicated to the development of embedded, real-time systems.
Building a space company
“Looking back, coding for ASPIICS has proven one of the most challenging projects that we’ve undertaken, but the experience has been invaluable in terms of kick-starting the N7 Space company; we now have more than 30 projects on our books – thanks in part to our association with ESA – and grown from three people initially to 25 specialised software engineers plus additional support staff,” says Michał.
“ESA remains our key partner but our experience is also useful in other domains. The N7 Space team currently works with the European Southern Observatory implementing the Extremely Large Telescope control system software.
“N7 Space offers bespoke software development services for the space market. We also provide pre-qualified space products that help other companies accelerate the development of flight software. We made recent contributions to ESA’s Hera and Comet Interceptor missions.
“The products we offer have been supported by various ESA funding programmes, with its General Support Technology Programme playing a leading role. Interestingly, products developed in collaboration with ESA have also attracted customers from non-ESA and non-European projects. Additionally, N7 Space has become part of the SPACEBEL group, forming a joint venture between Polish and Belgian capital. This partnership enables us to collaborate effectively with major industry players.
“Following the Proba-3 launch, our team is already engaged in activities for future missions, such as Ariel. We maintain close communication with ESA mission teams and are ready to provide support whenever needed.”