Projects
MOSAIC
An artists representation of MOSAIC networking between multiple Mars assets, on the surface and in orbit.
Background
Terrestrial high-performance computing has enabled incredible advances in autonomous vehicles, machine learning, and data analysis for Earth-side applications. Increasing numbers of assets on Mars, each with increasing CPU capabilities, creates unique opportunities to use distributed (cloud-like), self-organizing and networked computing for future mission concepts.Description
MOSAIC built upon proven Deep Space Network (DSN) technologies such as delay-tolerant-networking (DTN) combined with High Performance, Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) to test networked systems, shared computing, and optimized data routing between stationary, roving, and orbital assets. It was shown in field demonstrations that assets on a "MOSAIC network" may divide work by requesting or providing data sources, computation, storage, or network relay.More at https://github.com/nasa/mosaic. This task focused on three objectives:
1) Building software tool for trade space exploration that can optimize locations of assets, their communication requirements, roles, and software capabilities to maximize mission impact.
2) Building software libraries to enable distributed computation over ad-hoc networked devices and to enable a cloud-like service oriented distributed architecture in future missions.
3) Implementing and demonstrating software incorporating DTN networking on representative CPU architectures, rovers, and with realistic mission use-cases.