Dual depth 3U SpaceVPX development chassis
Pixus Technologies in Canada has launched an open frame development chassis for both 160mm deep and 220mm deep SpaceVPX and OpenVPX 3U boards.
The open frame chassis features up to four slots at 1.0” pitch of each board depth. The modular enclosure has card guide options to support both air-cooled boards and conduction-cooled boards.
There are also 220mm deep card guides that are wider to support extra thick SpaceVPX conduction-cooled boards per VITA 78.
A range of 3U or 6U OpenVPX backplanes are available, including versions that utilize the KVPX connector per VITA 63. A modular fixed PSU or a pluggable VITA 62 PSU slot is available in multiple configurations.
The SpaceVPX VITA78 standard development was started back in 2012, to develop an enhanced set of backplane specifications that were based upon existing commercial standards with added features required for space applications. Another objective for the standard, launched in 2015, was to expand interoperability and compatibility between manufacturers and integrators, while also increasing affordability through the use of standard sets of hardware.
While VITA65 defines backplane and board-level profiles from COTS vendors to ensure interoperability of products used in developing systems and subsystems, the VITA78 standard defines SpaceVPX to incorporate fault tolerance features that are required by many spaceflight systems. VITA78.1 provides a stripped down SpaceVPX Lite version of the standard.
The recent boom in the development of space systems with machine learning and AI has seen renewed interest in development systems using the fault-tolerant conduction cooled 3U and 6U boards.
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