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The impetus to start SEAKR began twenty years ago when the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) awarded an SBIR phase I award to develop a Magnetic Bubble Memory (MBM) replacement for the 1.7 Gbit tape recorders used on the Air Force DMSP weather satellite. Since that first contract in 1983, SEAKR has won over 100 contracts for spacecraft based electronics. Over this period, they have delivered approximately 100 spacecraft memory and processing systems, and they are presently on contract for 20 additional units. 55 of their units have been launched and are flawlessly performing their mission. Their on-orbit systems have demonstrated a total combined bit error rate of zero. Since pioneering Solid State Recorders (SSR), SEAKR has expanded into other avionics markets: On-Board Processing (OBP), Command & Data Handling (C&DH), power systems, and aircraft flight data recorders.
In 2001, SEAKR received the Tibbetts Award from the Small Business Administration (SBA). Awardees are selected for, among other things, the economic impact of their technological innovation, overall business achievement and their demonstration of successful collaborations. In 2003, SEAKR was recognized again by the SBA by awarding SEAKR the Region 8 Subcontractor of the Year. SEAKR has won other awards from Lockheed Martin and Boeing for their performance.
SEAKR's OBP products consist of different processing elements (scalar processors, ReConfigurable Computers, High Speed Serial Rapid I/O switches, memory components, and power systems) combined to meet the unique processing requirements for their customers. For demanding processing applications such as Space Based Radar (SBR) payload processing, hundreds of GFLOPs and multiple of GBytes of data need to be processed in real time which can be met with an array of RCC's, RapidI/O Switches, SBCs, and Memory Elements. Complementary, smaller systems can be designed using the same building blocks for applications that don't require as much processing such as realtime image compression, hyper spectral image processing, internet protocol (IP) routers, etc.
SEAKR has two single board computer processing products based on the PowerPC. The PowerPC603 is a mature product and has been qualified and delivered for multiple space station programs including JPL's program called LTMPF and is currently flying on the HCOR program. SEAKR's G4 PowerPC SBC is their latest product development in their PowerPC family, which is space based scalar processing capable of processor speeds in the Giga-hertz.
SEAKR's ReConfigurable Computers (RCCs) are high performance processors based on state of the art Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). FPGAs are used as CoProcessors (COPs) and are capable of multiple GFLOPs each. SEAKR's RCC products are designed to be scalable and networked to create very large systems.
Command and Data Handling (C&DH) is another natural extension of SEAKR's original product focus, Solid State Recorders (SSRs), and over the last three years, SEAKR has been developing their own C&DH system on internal IRAD funding. This investment has led to their first C&DH contract win with MicroSat Systems, Inc. for the Air Force DET-12 DSX satellite program. SEAKR's C&DH system is small, modular architecture that could easily be modified to meet a variety of space craft avionic requirements.
In 1997, using the expertise and reputation gained from their success in producing spaced based data recorders, SEAKR entered the "Other Than Space" market. Their approach to this segment has been to leverage their proven architectures while concentrating on the user mission environment both physically and logistically. One such product, again through the support of the SBIR program, is their Tape and Rigid-disk Replacement System (TARRS). Initially, this SBIR phase I explored the potential of a solid state storage system targeted at replacing aging tape recorders in airborne applications such as Reconnaissance missions. Currently these data acquisition systems utilize tape based storage technology. While tape technology is proven, it still suffers from low mean time between failure (MTBF) and substandard data throughput rates. Their phase II effort concentrated on producing a solid state recorder with a unique data off load system. Their successful efforts on the TARRS and Data Transfer System (DTS) became the standard system approach and has since been adopted by most of their competitors. Another non-space product is the C-17 avionics flight recorders. They've built over 600 systems to date.
SEAKR has been pushing the boundary of space hardware since 1982 when they developed the 1st flight solid state recorder (SSR) replacing tape drives for space storage. Since then, they've flown over 50 recorders without a single bit error while increasing capacity from a 1Mbit system to a 4 Tbit system and adding features like real time compression and high speed LVDS 10 Gbps data rates. Similar to the transformational changes of memory systems from tape to solid state recorders (SSR), SEAKR's OBPs and C&DH platforms are redefining what is possible. Transformational missions will require transformational technology.
Dave Jungkind
Business Development
Phone: 303-790-8499
Email: dave.jungkind@SEAKR.com
Website: http://www.seakr.com
