Multicore timing analysis support for ECSS-E-ST-40C R&D with MACH178

Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) is the government agency responsible for shaping and implementing France’s space policy in Europe. Its task is to invent the space systems of the future, bring space technologies to maturity and guarantee France’s independent access to space.

CNES is a pivotal player in Europe’s space programme, and a major source of initiatives and proposals that aim to maintain France and Europe’s strategic independence. Supporting the rapid transformation of France’s space sector and sowing the seeds of a new space economy, CNES works with companies of all sizes.

The CNES’s flight software division addresses all software running on an embedded computer inside satellites, rovers or stratopheric balloons. Such software is designed for platforms, payloads or equipment that handle critical functions such as attitude and orbit control, power management, mission data processing or star tracking. The division’s role is to be an enabler for new and complex missions or systems, empowering cuttingedge functions (AI, autonomy, embarkability, satellite swarms, …). To this end, the flight software division engages in three core areas of activities: 1) Roadmapping the future to anticipate and develop new software technologies, 2) Maintaining and developing generic software modules to benefit the French and European space ecosystem, 3) Supporting CNES and partners’ operational projects from phase 0 of the mission to in-flight operations.

Summary

The challenge

Collect and report on results for multicore interference testing using customers’ in-house testing frameworks to support ECSS-E-ST-40C R&D
Rapita needed to support integration with no access to interference generators

The solution

Customer-led integration of customer’s in-house interference generators with RapiTime and RapiTask

The benefits

Multicore timing results reported during test runs with in-house test frameworks
Flexible integration and detailed documentation supported customer integration, requiring little additional support from Rapita

The challenge

The use of multicore architecture is rising in the European space ecosystem. With challenging and critical software to be run on-board such spacecraft, abiding by strict quality standards (ECSS-E-ST-40C and ECSS-Q-ST-80C), the need for timing analysis methodologies and tools for space software becomes more pressing.

To explore such questions, CNES led a consortium with two of the main European satellite manufacturers in order to join forces and conduct together an R&D activity evaluating methodologies for multicore timing analysis.

All 3 organizations had developed their own evaluation projects, which included testing frameworks to run multicore interference tests and applications that can be used to apply interference on multicore systems. CNES approached Rapita to provide a method that could be used to collect and report on results from these experiments.

The solution

Rapita Systems supported the consortium by providing RVS automation tools to collect and report results from multicore timing tests.

RapiTime was set up to support the collection and reporting of timing data, as well as values from hardware event monitors on the platform. RapiTask was also deployed to support visualization of the scheduling of the multicore software.

All members of the consortium required that they set up the multicore integrations themselves, with support from Rapita available where necessary.

Every organization in the consortium successfully integrated RapiTime and RapiTask into their evaluation projects, and multicore timing tests were run and collected. As Rapita was unable to access any of the external IP used in the project, the consortium used RVS’s user documentation to set up integrations with service support from Rapita where necessary.

Zynq 7000 SoC used for multicore interference testing by CNES Image ©CNES/Frédéric LANCELOT, 2025

RapiTime Screenshot — RapiTime supports the collection of timing analysis results and HEM values during multicore timing analysis - representative image

The benefits

The use of Rapita Systems solutions led to an overall reduction in cost and effort for the study:

RapiTime and RapiTask automated the collection and reporting of values from multicore testing including execution time.
The flexible nature of RapiTime and RapiTask tools allowed them to integrate into the customers’ existing development environments and toolchains.
RVS’s extensive user documentation helped the customers integrate RVS tools with their systems, reducing the amount of support needed to deploy multicore integrations.

“The need for new methodologies and tools for space software development in multicore architectures is shared by the better part of the space ecosystem. We were pleased to discover, during this study, Rapita’s expert knowledge in the domain. While the work on the topic is continuing at CNES, Rapita has already confirmed to be an important actor on this matter.”
Pierre-Baptiste Lambert
Head of Flight Software Development
CNES

“We were able to make a first integration rather quickly of RVS in our buildchain and on multiple targets, which is a testament of the tools and documentation maturity along with Rapita Systems’s efficient support.”
Lucas Miné
Onboard Software Engineer
CNES

Next Steps

To learn how MACH¹⁷⁸ can help reduce the cost and effort of multicore avionics certification, see our product page. To enquire about how Rapita can help you in other ways, contact us.

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Multicore timing analysis support for ECSS-E-ST-40C R&D with MACH178

Multicore timing analysis support for ECSS-E-ST-40C R&D with MACH178