Advanced Hybrid On-Board Science Data Processor - SpaceCube 2.0

Many of the missions proposed in the Earth Science Decadal Survey (ESDS) will require "next generation" on-board processing capabilities to meet their specified mission goals. Advanced laser altimeter, radar, lidar and hyper-spectral instruments are proposed for at least ten of the Decadal Survey missions, and all of these instrument systems will require advanced on-board processing capabilities to facilitate the timely conversion of Earth Science data into Earth Science information. Both an "order of magnitude" increase in processing power and the ability to "reconfigure on the fly" are required to implement algorithms that detect and react to events, to produce data products on-board for applications such as direct downlink, quick look, and "first responder" real-time awareness, to enable "sensor web" multi-platform collaboration, and to perform on-board "lossless" data reduction by migrating typical ground-based processing functions on-board, thus reducing on-board storage and downlink requirements. The convergence of technology collaborations between the Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC), the U.S. Air Force and the Naval Research Lab (NRL) is being leveraged to produce a SpaceCube 2.0 on-board data processing system that will meet the on-board processing needs of the ESDS missions. SpaceCube 2.0 technology can directly support ACE, GEO-CAPE, HyspIRI, ICESat-II, LIST, SCLP, SMAP, SWOT, PATH and 3D-Winds.