Analysis of the applicability of reconfigurable computers in satellite telemetry data processing

The advent of reconfigurable computers (RCs) containing field-programmable gate-array (FPGA) ICs presents a potential solution to the problem of processing telemetry data at the high rates required to support the latest remote-sensing satellites. For example, one satellite scheduled for launch in 1999 by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) project will generate as much Earth-science telemetry in six months as has been collected in NASA's entire 40-year history. NASA is developing software for large, expensive, conventional parallel-processing computer systems in an attempt to meet the expected processing requirements, but whether or not the resulting performance will be adequate remains unknown. For computationally-intensive, repetitive applications like this, RC technology can provide the critical performance edge. The Adaptive Scientific Data Processing (ASDP) project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has been investigating RC applications in scientific processing systems. ASDP has developed prototype RC solutions which have achieved processing speeds an order of magnitude faster than a conventional high-end computer workstation alone. This paper presents an overview of remote-sensing satellite telemetry, outlines a particular telemetry processing challenge, describes ASDP's application of RC, discusses the results, and analyzes the current and future state of the art.