SpaceX Software Stack

[mspohr]

SpaceX spacecraft are close cousins to your Chrome browser and Android phone

Interesting article detailing the software SpaceX uses and their development process.
Looks like Chromium, Linux
Weekly updates and A/B testing.
Encryption, automated software testing
Kerbal Space Program

 

[Cosmacelf]

SpaceX spacecraft are close cousins to your Chrome browser and Android phone

Interesting article detailing the software SpaceX uses and their development process.
Looks like Chromium, Linux
Weekly updates and A/B testing.
Encryption, automated software testing
Kerbal Space Program

Well, whenever anyone talks about the Apollo computers, they make some silly comparison saying that your phone is like a gazillion times faster than they were. Now, we’ve moved to having the equivalent of phones running current spacecraft

I propose we have a new measure of compute power. It is “the phone” and the absolute measure changes over time as, of course, phones get more powerful. Not a bad idea, actually...

 

[bxr140]

I mean, my house and Elon's house are probably made out of the same kind of wood...

 

[mspohr]

I mean, my house and Elon's house are probably made out of the same kind of wood...

I think my point here is that SpaceX is using mature, tested open source software as it's foundation whereas in the past, other companies used proprietary stacks which required long development and testing timelines and we're difficult to update. Advantage to SpaceX in that they can leverage a large development community to quickly implement advanced features.
Your house could be built faster, cheaper and have better features if it was built of prefab modules

 

[Cosmacelf]

I think my point here is that SpaceX is using mature, tested open source software as it's foundation whereas in the past, other companies used proprietary stacks which required long development and testing timelines and we're difficult to update. Advantage to SpaceX in that they can leverage a large development community to quickly implement advanced features.
Your house could be built faster, cheaper and have better features if it was built of prefab modules

Indeed. I suspect that while SpaceX has used mature software stacks, a senior programmer still went through went through each line of open source code checking for code quality.

 

[bxr140]

I think my point here is that SpaceX is using mature, tested open source software as it's foundation whereas in the past, other companies used proprietary stacks which required long development and testing timelines and we're difficult to update.

Most space entities uses some version of a stack that has some relation to a large user base. SpaceX isn't the first to consider that reinventing the wheel is maybe not the best way to spend resources...