NASA Spends $50 Million to Develop Next-Gen Processor for Space Exploration

 Faster and more reliable. 

NASA Spends $50 Million to Develop Next-Gen Processor for Space Exploration

By Ryan Whitwam on August 18, 2022 at 8:42 am

NASA has been using the same spaceflight computers for almost 30 years, but it won’t be much longer. The agency has awarded a $50 million contract to Arizona-based Microchip Technology Inc. to “architect, design, and deliver” a next-generation space-optimized processor. NASA expects the new chip, which will be used in future lunar and planetary missions, will be 100 times faster than the chips currently in use. 

In an interview we conducted with Perseverance rover engineer Adam Steltzner, he told us the chip powering the robot was no faster than the CPU in a late 90s Mac computer — the phone in your pocket is an order of magnitude more powerful. However, you can’t just slap the latest Intel CPU in a spacecraft and call it a day. Space is a harsh environment with extreme temperatures and damaging radiation. Regular computer hardware tends not to last very long. The Ingenuity Mars helicopter is one notable exception. It runs on a Qualcomm smartphone SoC, and despite NASA’s low expectations, it’s still going strong on Mars. 

Still, for mission-critical hardware, NASA needs the most robust designs it can get. That’s why Microchip Technology is designing a new chip known as the High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) processor. This will mean a big improvement in the capabilities of future NASA missions, and not just in raw power. Microchip Technology promises “comprehensive Ethernet networking, advanced artificial intelligence/machine learning processing, and connectivity support.” At the same time, the processor will have the best fault tolerance, radiation hardening, and security architecture possible.  ...