Oringer Seminar Series

     Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) designs, manufactures and
    launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in
    2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of
    enabling people to live on other planets.
      Making that goal a reality requires a lot of software. The software
    running on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft is responsible for
    controlling those vehicles in all phases of flight, from launch and
    landing to orbital rendezvous and docking. Designing, implementing, and
    testing this software is a highly challenging problem due to the many
    unique constraints of this application. These include space radiation
    effects, limited computing power, and extremely high reliability
    requirements.
      In this talk, I will discuss the current projects the Flight Software
    group at SpaceX is working on, and how we deal with the many interesting
    challenges of writing code that flies to space.