The Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS) is a fault-tolerant distributed computer system architecture that was developed to meet the real time computational needs of advanced aerospace vehicles. One such vehicle is the Advanced Launch System (ALS) being developed jointly by NASA and the Department of Defense to launch heavy payloads into low earth orbit at one tenth the cost (per pound of payload) of the current launch vehicles. An avionics architecture that utilizes the AIPS hardware and software building blocks was synthesized for ALS. The AIPS for ALS architecture synthesis process starting with the ALS mission requirements and ending with an analysis of the candidate ALS avionics architecture is described. Lala, Jaynarayan H. and Harper, Richard E. and Jaskowiak, Kenneth R. and Rosch, Gene and Alger, Linda S. and Schor, Andrei L. ADVANCED LAUNCH SYSTEM (STS); AIRBORNE/SPACEBORNE COMPUTERS; ARCHITECTURE (COMPUTERS); AVIONICS; DIGITAL COMPUTERS; DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING; FAULT TOLERANCE; INFORMATION SYSTEMS; COMPUTER SYSTEMS DESIGN; DESIGN ANALYSIS; HEAVY LIFT LAUNCH VEHICLES; LOW EARTH ORBITS; MISSION PLANNING; REAL TIME OPERATION...

The major goals of this effort are as follows: (1) to examine technology insertion options to optimize Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS) performance in the Advanced Launch System (ALS) environment; (2) to examine the AIPS concepts to ensure that valuable new technologies are not excluded from the AIPS/ALS implementations; (3) to examine advanced microprocessors applicable to AIPS/ALS, (4) to examine radiation hardening technologies applicable to AIPS/ALS; (5) to reach conclusions on AIPS hardware building blocks implementation technologies; and (6) reach conclusions on appropriate architectural improvements. The hardware building blocks are the Fault-Tolerant Processor, the Input/Output Sequencers (IOS), and the Intercomputer Interface Sequencers (ICIS). Cole, Richard Unspecified Center...