We're using a couple of Basilisk flight software modules in flight in a couple weeks.

[patrickwalton]

Hi Basilisk community, I have an update that might be interesting to everyone here. My company recently launched a test satellite (1U cubesat) that uses a couple of Basilisk modules as part of it's attitude control loop.

If I remember correctly, the potential for use in flight was the motivation for using C for the Basilisk flight software modules, so I thought I'd open a discussion on that ambition.

Seamless transition from simulation to flight software is a priority for us, but going from a Basilisk sim to flight was very difficult. Some of that difficulty came from firmware development that is understandably outside of the scope of Basilisk, but I suspect there are a lot of improvements that could be made to the process of transitioning control software developed in Basilisk to flight.

We'll share updates if we make progress here, but in the meantime, I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else has flown a Basilisk module. If so, what was the process of incorporating that module into your flight software?

[MichaelBonnet]

Unfortunately, you may be hard pressed to get answers, since doing so would likely constitute sharing trade secrets for most developers.

[patrickwalton]

I think we'll find in the long run that the winning teams focus on trade secrets that actually matter instead of hiding the fact that they're using open source software. Google and Facebook are pretty clear examples that transparency and support of open source are winning strategies.

[MichaelBonnet]

Oh, I fully agree philosophically. I'm more noting the challenges many developers who wish to share such information would face.

Astroscale published an interesting paper on how they married cFS with Basilisk for SITL and HITL that is relevant here.

[patrickwalton]

Gotcha that makes sense.

I didn't know Astroscale was using Basilisk! Very cool! Excited to read the full paper.

Side note, if anyone wants to work somewhere that lets you upstream open source and talk more about what you're doing, Care Weather, is hiring. Use the contact link on the site.

[atharris-work]

Late response, but it's worth looking at Dr. Mar Cols-Margenet's dissertation and papers - she was heavily focused on the full-lifecycle flight software development problem a few years ago, and along with Scott Piggott and Patrick Kenneally (among others) did a lot of work on a flight application of Basilisk.

Her dissertation is a good starting point!