CubeSats can encounter a myriad of difficulties in space like cosmic rays, temperature<br/>issues, and loss of control. By creating better, more reliable software, these problems can be<br/>mitigated and increase the chance of success for the mission. This research sets out to answer the<br/>question: how do we create reliable flight software for CubeSats? by providing a concentrated<br/>list of the best flight software development practices. The CubeSat used in this research is the<br/>Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) CubeSat, which is a 3U CubeSat that seeks to<br/>demonstrate optical communication data rates of 1 Gbps over long distances. We present an<br/>analysis over many of the flight software development practices currently in use in the industry,<br/>from industry leads NASA, and identify three key flight software development areas of focus:<br/>memory, concurrency, and error handling. Within each of these areas, the best practices were<br/>defined for how to approach the area. These practices were also developed using experience<br/>from the creation of flight software for the DORA CubeSat in order to drive the design and<br/>testing of the system. We analyze DORA’s effectiveness in the three areas of focus, as well as<br/>discuss how following the best practices identified helped to create a more reliable flight<br/>software system for the DORA CubeSat.

NASA has partnered with multiple colleges, including ASU, on a mission to study an asteroid called Psyche. Psyche is the first asteroid discovered made of metal, mostly iron, that is close enough for us to study and could give insight into what Earth’s core is like. The mission plans and research documents on how the various measurement tools work are not engaging to those without a background in STEM. This serves as inspiration to make a web-based game in order to make the information more engaging to the player. This web-based game will take the user through the Psyche mission going from the assembly of the measurement tools all the way to when the satellite is orbiting the asteroid. The creative project consisted of creating a simulation for a young audience, between ages 10 and 18, to experience what the mission could look like once the satellite is at the Psyche asteroid and what the data collected could mean. The asteroid could have been formed through a process called the dynamo process or it could be a piece of a larger parent body. It could be made mostly of metal or silicates, which will be determined during the mission. These are some of the results that will be generalized and relayed to the player. This creative project includes the four main sections of the orbit phase of the mission in which the users will perform tasks to collect some data in order to see some of the generalized possible results of the study of Psyche. Some of the data collected would be the amount of metal making up the asteroid and figuring out what the gravitational pull is. The first main section will use the magnetometer, the second section will use the multispectral imager, the third section will use X-Band Radio Waves, and the fourth section will use the gamma ray and neutron spectrometer.