On-board satellite software architecture for the goal-based Brazilian mission operations

This article described the development and implementation of a software architecture to perform on-board planning for INPE satellites. This enables, with respect to the space segment, the adoption of the goal-based operations paradigm and consequently allows for an increase of the autonomy level. The performance presented by the architecture in a realistic case study is comparable to those reported by the only three NASA missions that have run on-board planning in the space segment up-to-date. A new planning modeling language was created, which allows a description of the operations domain closer to the real system and with few abstractions. The implemented architecture is integrated to the flight software and fit to run in space-qualified hardware with limited processing power.