At the Open Source Summit Japan, Ramón Roche introduced Papermoon, an open source Linux stack designed for space applications. The project aims to standardize software for satellites and spacecraft, reducing the need for custom builds in the growing NewSpace industry. Drawing from drone sector successes, it seeks to foster collaboration and innovation.
Papermoon: Standardizing Linux for Space Exploration
In a keynote titled “Space Grade Linux” at the Open Source Summit Japan conference in Tokyo, Ramón Roche, a robotics developer and general manager of the Dronecode Foundation, highlighted the shift from bespoke software to open source Linux in space missions. Historically, satellites and spacecraft relied on one-off, hand-coded programs, leading to issues like the 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter loss due to a software error. By 2013, the International Space Station adopted Debian Linux for critical tasks, while SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon spacecraft, and NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter all run Linux. Even the European Space Agency's Doomon satellite has supported open source applications.
Roche emphasized the NewSpace era's challenges: launch costs have plummeted to under $100 per kilogram, enabling more missions but increasing software complexity amid radiation risks and communication delays. "You can launch a satellite for the cost of a nice car," he noted, yet many teams still build fragmented Linux variants from scratch. A survey identified Yocto as the leading embedded Linux distribution, but the lack of a shared foundation persists. "Everyone agrees that Linux is the answer," Roche said. "But nobody agrees on which Linux."
Inspired by the drone industry's transition to open source standards like PX4, which now powers most commercial drones, Roche proposed Papermoon as a layered, MIT-licensed stack. It features mission-specific frameworks atop a board-support layer, built with Yocto/OpenEmbedded for reproducible images. Initial hardware targets include affordable RISC-V boards akin to Raspberry Pi and radiation-tolerant Microchip MPSoCs, with continuous integration ensuring reliability.
Incubated within the Linux Foundation's ELISA initiative since 2019, Papermoon addresses safety certification for critical systems. A 2024 meeting at NASA Goddard involved over 70 participants from 20+ organizations to shape its direction. Roche envisions forming a dedicated foundation, modeled on Automotive Grade Linux, to establish governance and standards. "The next mission shouldn’t start from scratch," he urged, inviting space developers to collaborate on this foundational infrastructure.
