Selecting Space Processors for High Order Wavefront Control Adaptive Optics Systems

The real time control of many-actuator adaptive optics systems will allow future space telescopes to suppress starlight and directly image and characterize exoplanets. In the future, a measurement by this technique may be the first to directly detect extraterrestrial life in the universe. However, the real-time execution of adaptive control algorithms will place unprecedented demands on spaceborne processors. Previous work has estimated the necessary level of computational system performance based on computational density analysis. In this work, we first evaluate the relevant algorithms in numerical detail, and decompose the top-level computational system into subsystems. We then perform requirements flow-down to these subsystems to evaluate the expected performance of a range of candidate processors. We additionally consider radiation degradation of the control processor within the context of a high contrast imaging mission. With this system decomposition and requirements flow-down, we survey relevant space processors for their expected performance on wavefront sensing and control algorithms. This analysis supports the need for further development of high performance radiation tolerant processors.