When PIGs Fly - addressing software reliability concerns for the IRIS IP router operating system

The effort to place an Internet protocol (IP) router on a space-borne platform has raised concerns regarding the ability to attain space flight level reliability of the router operating system (OS) due to the size of the code involved. Dissecting the code base used to generate the OS image for the IP router subsystem of the IP routing in space (IRIS) satellite payload shows that only relatively small changes are necessary in order to leverage commercial off the shelf code for use on flight hardware. The unchanged portion of code receives considerable execution exposure in both internal verification regimens, and real world networks operations. Testing to establish the reliability of the small set of changed code becomes a much more manageable task making this a low-risk approach to putting a feature-rich network operating system in space.