Design of inter process communication methodology in automatic spacecraft checkout environment

Spacecraft Checkout operations form a crucial part in clearing the satellite along with its subsystems for launch. The environment presents numerous challenges where multiple tests are to be carried out meticulously and study the impact on different subsystems to ensure the proper and efficient behavior of those. Automatic Checkout System aims at providing an integrated system where tests can be carried out and results can be analyzed with minimal manual intervention. The system comprises of multiple tasks which schedule the test procedures, execute the same and monitor the results. Inter process communication is essential amongst these tasks to successfully perform the designed functions. In this paper a Message Server is presented which acts as the communication backbone of the Automatic Checkout System. The proposed method uses a combination of socket based communication technique and shared memory to effectively pass the message amongst the Client applications. Implementation aspects along with the results are also briefed in this paper.