Reminds me of this post comparing the CPU and RAM of the Apollo 11 flight computer with modern USB chargers. (spoiler alert: the USB charger wins)<p><a href="https://forrestheller.com/Apollo-11-Computer-vs-USB-C-chargers.html" rel="nofollow">https://forrestheller.com/Apollo-11-Computer-vs-USB-C-charge...</a><p>Hacker News comment link:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22254719" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22254719</a>
Space flight computers in the public sector are generally 15-20 years behind the types of hardware we commonly work with on the ground, as I think this page shows.<p>We now have pretty capable low-power SoCs and FPGAs that we've yet to see broadly leveraged for govt. space applications. SpaceX flies Starlink with Xilinx FPGAs, while NASA and DoD are still baselining new platforms on incredibly expensive (albeit rad-hard) PowerPC RAD750 and similar. This is a huge bottleneck for any computationally intensive task we might want to do on-orbit, and I'm curious if or when it will change. It's one technical reason, in my opinion, that the private sector is currently calling the shots in space.
On some of the silicon details: <a href="https://habr.com/en/post/518366/" rel="nofollow">https://habr.com/en/post/518366/</a>
ESA uses an OpenSparc fork, LEON.<p><a href="http://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Onboard_Computers_and_Data_Handling/Microprocessors" rel="nofollow">http://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Techno...</a>
So my watch (or maybe headphones even) is several times faster than anything that's ever run a spacecraft?<p>(I understand why, but that this is so just blows me away)
"A CPU for use in space must first be MIL-STD-883"<p>Is this just for NASA craft? Are there any regulations for private craft or international standards?
There have been none RAD hard CPUs working in space. <a href="https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/the-space-station-gets-a-new-supercomputer-1708.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/the-space-statio...</a>
Do we actually have much data on the failure rates to different kinds of chips to radiation in space? If so ... how?
What conditions have to hold so that when a chip is damaged by radiation you get enough information about it to know which chip had what kind of problem?