How SHREC went to the moon — without even knowing

Over the years, Alan George has worked with dozens of students to pioneer new hardware and software technologies for computing in space. Several of their systems have operated on the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit and recently, for the first time, students fielded SHREC work in geosynchronous orbit - 22,000 miles above our Blue Planet.

Looking to the future of space exploration, humanity will also need computers that can function on a moon base, and even on Mars, but one of George's systems has yet to reach Earth's natural satellite. Or so he thought.

"I'm online reading this article talking about the success of MSOLO on the moon," George said, referring to NASA Kennedy Space Center's Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations. "And I get this big grin on my face and I fire off an email to NASA Kennedy … I said, 'Would you please check? I'm sure that's the same MSOLO that we worked on.'"

George is the director of the NSF Center for Space, High-Performance and Resilient Computing (SHREC), where Pitt researchers focus on designing computing systems that can withstand the unique challenges of operating in space. Specifically, they build systems that are reconfigurable, intelligent, scalable, resilient and secure and share new technologies with member institutions, including other universities, space industry companies and space agencies.

"Often we are directly involved from the start to the finish of space missions," George said. For instance, take the Configurable and Autonomous Sensor Processing Research (CASPR) system, SHREC's third space system on ISS. After developing the system, which features effective onboard processing with high-tech sensors, Pitt students delivered it to NASA Johnson Space Center for flight integration. Later, after launch in December 2021, those graduate students started receiving and analyzing the data that CASPR sent back to the SHREC ground station, housed at Pitt. Its run will conclude in a few months when the system will be deorbited from the ISS, eventually burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

Sometimes, however, things work differently. "There are also space missions where SHREC members adopt our technologies and may not keep us updated along the way."

MSOLO was one such mission. About a decade ago, George and his students designed a new type of embedded computer for use in space. At the time, the prevailing mindset was that all space electronics had to be "radiation-hardened," or built specifically to withstand the extreme conditions of space.

There's not much of a demand for radiation-hardened devices, so they tend to be much more expensive and much older than the technologies used on Earth, George said. "It's not unusual to design a space system with radiation-hardened parts that are older than the designers."

The SHREC team came up with a process to create hybrid systems for unmanned missions that mixes some of the highest-tier conventional components with radiation-hardened components. The resulting computing systems are nearly as dependable and more modern and higher performing than entirely radiation-hardened technology, but with much lower cost, size, weight and power. For example, a radiation-tolerant computer system can use modern, more powerful and easier-to-source processors paired with radiation-hardened parts that monitor and potentially mitigate any processor malfunctions in the harsh environment.

Working with SHREC, the NASA Kennedy Space Center adopted his radiation-tolerant computer system to function as the core of its MSOLO mass spectrometer, a modified off-the-shelf system for analyzing chemicals found on the moon's surface. In early March, the radiation-tolerant system touched down aboard the Intuitive Machines IM-2 lunar lander, and deployed successfully as part of NASA's Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1.

"This was the first time that a SHREC technology has been showcased so far from the Earth," George said. But it won't be the last: the NASA Kennedy Space Center is now working on an upgraded MSOLO, which will launch no earlier than 2026.

Photography by Alan George