NASA’s International Space Station and Johnson Space Center
QuickFlex's Reconfigurable Logic Manager™ V.1 and its QuickQard™ technology helped NASA meet its deployment requirements for manned operations outside the International Space Station. During the course of the initiative QuickFlex significantly reduced the anticipated development time for a key portion of the project from an estimated three to four (3-4) months to two and a half (2.5) weeks, and reduced total anticipated project costs by fifty percent (50%).The Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) is a mini-propulsion unit that provides contingency maneuvering capability for a space-suited crew member during extravehicular activity (EVA) operations. The SAFER provides self-rescue capability for an EVA crew member who becomes inadvertently separated from the International Space Station (ISS). At the time QuickFlex became engaged with NASA the SAFER solution needed hardware reduction, and prior solutions had performance issues. Additionally the system is required to be compatible with two incompatible hand controllers.
QuickFlex’s services for NASA resulted in the deployment of the Company’s QuickQard flight-qualified, Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based custom hardware and standardized RLM v.1 software technologies. The QuickFlex technologies provided NASA with dynamic re-configurability to adapt to the incompatible hand controllers, hardware reduction down to two laptops, and software performance at hardware speeds. The QuickQard technology, with support from third-party experts and the QuickFlex team, was used for radiation testing, and tested itself before deployment.
  QuickQard |
 QuickQard |
 EMU SAFER Using QuickQard |
 Orlan SAFER Using QuickQard |
The QuickFlex technologies, with various upgrades, are in use today in the NASA SAFER training solution in the ISS and at Johnson Space Center. QuickFlex’s experience in these and other projects can help bring significant cost and time savings to our valued customers.