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David McComas edited this page Jan 22, 2024 · 60 revisions

The Ball Aerospace version of COSMOS used in OpenSatKit is no longer maintained. If you can’t install OpenSatKit, searching the Issues and Discussions is your best option. I have a new project called cFS Basecamp that provides a cFS training and application development environment. Basecamp includes cFS-based educational projects that use an App Store so apps required by a project can be downloaded and installed with a couple of clicks.


OpenSatKit is a multi-facet platform for working with NASA’s open-source core Flight System (cFS). OSK supports developing cFS-based mission flight software (FSW), learning how to engineer cFS apps, controlling a remote cFS system on a Raspberry Pi, and developing prototype R&D cFS apps. OSK combines three powerful open-source platforms to achieve these goals: Ball Aerospace Corporation's COSMOS command and control platform for embedded systems, NASA's cFS (NASA cFS Homepage), and Eric Stoneking's 42 Simulator.

The cFS Framework provides many benefits including significant flight heritage, high reliability, a complete set of command and data handling functions required by most spacecraft, and an active community that maintains a suite of apps many with flight heritage. However, as an open architecture the cFS can be technically challenging for new users to configure and deploy. OSK is a cFS distribution that contains over 20 apps and libraries that are a combination of cFS community apps and OSK-specific apps with the goal of simplifying the cFS learning curve and adoption for multiple fields including aerospace, STEM education, and hobbyist. OSK generates different cFS targets based on the user’s goal.

cFS Layer Architecture

OpenSatKit helps cFS users with

Follow these instructions to get started...

1. Install OpenSatKit

To install OpenSatKit, copy and paste the following line in an Ubuntu terminal window to run the installation shell script. Root privilege is required to install and run OpenSatKit.

bash <(\wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OpenSatKit/OpenSatKit/vendor/install.sh)

Please be patient, the installation can take around 30 minutes depending upon your internet and computer resources. Note the following issues:

  1. When you try to run 'ruby Launcher' for the first time you'll get en error stating you need to run 'bundle install' which you should do. The 'bundle install' in the installation script doesn't seem to work and this problem is captured in issue 12.
  2. If you click the button and the terminal window that gets created closed immediately then the cFS didn't get built during the installation. This seems to be an intermittent problem that is capture in issue 70.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is now supported starting with OSK v2.9!. COSMOS 4.* became incompatible with Ubuntu 20.04. See COSMOS issues 1169 and 1171 for details. OSK's installation script was updated in v2.9 to overcome these issues by installing a libqt4 Personal Package Archive (PPA) repo rock-core. Note this PPA has not been formally validated.

If you have any problems with the installation don't hesitate to contact dmccomas63@gmail.com. OSK has many dependencies that sometime change without notice. Also a 'survey issue' has been created where you can indicate additional platforms you would like to see supported. The intent of this issue is to be a survey, so indicate support if your desired platform has already been mentioned.

2. Run OpenSatKit

OSK is always launched in the same manner as shown below. Once the main page is displayed select the tab that corresponds to your goal. The OSK Quick Start Guide explains the over all OSK system. The following links navigate to a webpage summary of each goal that also includes a link to a quick start guide specific to each goal.

  1. cFS Education: Learn the core Flight Executive (cFE) and how to develop and test cFS applications.
  2. Mission cFS FSW: Develop a cFS-based spacecraft flight software (FSW) system.
  3. Pi-Sat: Use OSK’s COSMOS configuration to remotely operate a cFS deployment on a Raspberry Pi.
  4. Research & Developemnt: Use OSK as a general-purpose tool for education and prototyping.

To start OSK, open a terminal window, change directory to ~/OpenSatKit-master/cosmos, and launch COSMOS by typing "ruby Launcher". Next click the "cFS OpenSatKit" button to launch the OpenSatKit home page which has one tab for each user goal.

References and Resources

  1. OSK cFS community apps & tool versions
  2. cFS Platform List
  3. cFS Resources
  4. OSK Roadmap
  5. Notes on migrating apps from from 6.7.1 to cFE 6.8
  • Created a COSMOS-to-Pi interface that allows the Pi-Sat GPIO demo app to be run from COSMOS over a WiFi connection
  • Released v1.1 of the Raspberry Pi Target that includes pictrl, a python program used to control the COSMOS-PiSat interface
  • Updated Pi-Sat Quick Start Guide to fully describe how to configure and run a remote Pi-Sat target

Recent release notes

Introduction

Learn the cFS Framework

Systems Engineering

Learn Community Apps

Develop Apps

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