Revision as of 04:42, 8 February 2014

Over the years various microprocessors have been used in many different spacecrafts. Microprocessors are used in spacecrafts are designed to be exceptionally reliable and highly durable. Because of that, often the same set of chips that have been tested and proven to work are used in many spacecrafts. Below is a list of microprocessors used in spacecrafts.

1960s

Year	Picture	Spacecraft	Description
1959-1963	200px	Mercury spacecraft	The Mercury spacecraft, NASA's first human spaceflight, had barely enough space for a single occupant. The spacecraft had no independent maneuvering capabilities - relying completely on the Atlas booster rocket. Because of that, it was unnecessary for the spacecraft to have a dedicated on-board computer. Limited functionality was done by various smaller systems.
1962-1966		Gemini Spacecraft	The Gemini Spacecraft, part of Project Gemini, NASA's second human spaceflight program, that ran from 1965-1966, carried an on-board digital computer called the Gemini Guidance Computer. The computer, which weighted fifty pounds and measured nineteen inches long, had about 19.5KB of memory.
1961-1972		Apollo spacecraft	The Apollo spacecraft, part of the Apollo program, NASA's third human spaceflight program, that ran from 1961 to 1972, carried an on-board digital computer called the Apollo Guidance Computer. The 16-bit computer weighted 70 pounds and consumed 55W had a clock speed of 2.048 MHz.

1970s

Year	Picture	Spacecraft	Description
1971		Pioneer 10	The Pioneer 10, which was launched on March 3, 1972, became the first spacecraft to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. The spacecraft's process were made of individual transistor-transistor logic chips. A common myth is that the Intel 4004 powered the Pioneer 10, however, this is incorrect.
1973		Pioneer 11	The Pioneer 11, was launched on April 6, 1973 in order to study the Asteroid belt. Just like it's twin prob, the Pioneer 10, its CPU was also a custom-designed TTL CPU.
		Skylab	The Skylab, which was launched on May 14, 1973, and operated until 1979, used an IBM System/4Pi model TC-1 (Tactical Computer), a miniaturized and hardened version of the IBM System/360 computers.
1975		Viking 1	The Viking 1, the first of two spacecrafts, was launched on August 20, 1975. The Viking 2, was launched a litter later on September 9, 1975 The computer on-board the Viking Orbiter was the Viking Orbiter CCS, a custom 18-bit TTL computer designed by General Electric. The lander computers, the Guidance, Control and Sequencing Computer, used two Honeywell HDC 402 microprocessors. (A common myth is that the Viking used an RCA 1802, this is incorrect).
		Viking 2
1977		Voyager 1	The Voyager 1 and its sister craft Voyager 2 were launched on September 5 and August 20 of 1977 and are still operating to date (2014). On August 25, 2012, NASA announced that Voyager 1 entered interstellar space. Each craft carries three dual-redundant computer systems. The first one, the Voyager Command and Control Subsystem (CCS), was in charge of general spacecraft sequencing and general health functionality. The second one, the Voyager Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystems (AACS) used a slight variation of the CCS. The third computer was the Voyager's data computer, which was a custom 4-bit CMOS microprocessor.
		Voyager 2

1980s

Year	Picture	Spacecraft	Description
1981-2011		Space Shuttle	The Space Shuttles uses 5 identical (for redundancy) 32-bit IBM APA-101S microprocessors. The shuttle system was called the Data Processing System which was composed of Primary Avionics Software System (PASS), that ran in 4 of the computers and the Backup Flight System on the fifth.
1989		Galileo

1990s

Year	Picture	Spacecraft	Description
1990		Hubble Space Telescope
1992		MSTI-1
		SAMPEX
1994		MSTI-2
		Clementine
1995		MSTI-3
1996		Mars Global Surveyor
		Mars Global Surveyor
1997		Cassini–Huygens
1998		International Space Station
		SWAS
		TRACE
1999		Terra
		WIRE

2000s

Year	Picture	Spacecraft	Description
2000		Cluster II
2002		Aqua
2003		Spirit Rover
		Opportunity rover
2004		Rosetta
		Aura
2006	200px	New Horizons
2007		Dawn

2010s

Year	Picture	Spacecraft	Description
2011		Curiosity rover
2012		Project Morpheus