How Masten Space Systems is Using Ada and SPARK to Land on the Moon’s South Pole
How Masten Space Systems is Using Ada and SPARK to Land on the Moon’s South Pole
Customer success: real results with AdaCore technologies
Customer
Masten Space Systems - a developer of reusable verticaltakeoff/vertical-landing (VTVL) rockets
Challenge
Masten’s XL-1 Lunar Lander will transport a suite of scientific research payloads to the lunar south pole. It boasts numerous small embedded computers called electronic control units (ECUs) that turn the power on and off to various components, control the engines and thrusters, and interface with sensors. Developing the software for these small, heavily constrained ECUs presents a number of challenges. The software will run in a “bare metal” configuration, and it has to be extremely reliable and easy to maintain. The code also needs to be modular and reusable, to avoid duplication of effort and to reduce development costs and timeline.
Solution
To develop their mission-critical flight control software, Masten chose the Ada and SPARK programming languages, together with AdaCore’s GNAT Pro integrated development environment and the SPARK Pro static analysis tool suite.
Results and Benefits
While the XL-1 Lunar Lander project is still in development, Masten already sees substantial value in the capabilities that Ada, SPARK, and AdaCore’s products and support have brought to their embedded project. They expect to realize a reduction of at least 20 to 30 percent in verification and validation time and in overall development costs and timelines, as well as a 20 to 30 percent increase in code reuse.
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