"In OBP We Trust": Verification and Validation of the M2020 On Board Planner Flight Software
Shreya Parjan, Dan Gaines · 2024
The Mars 2020 On Board Planner (OBP) entered primary operations on the Perseverance rover on October 5, 2023. OBP addresses a productivity challenge faced by every Mars rover mission thus far: predicting resource usage in the dynamic Martian environment. Historically, operators have leveraged conservative models to generate constrained schedules for when activities must execute onboard. On Board Planner enables Perseverance to respond to variations in activity execution and expected state, ultimately reducing conservatism in planning and addressing significant deviations from the initial schedule during plan execution. Effectively infusing OBP’s capabilities and reaping its benefits is predicated on operators trusting that the flight system is and will remain safe in the dynamic exploration environment with OBP in control. This paper describes the Verification and Validation (V&V) campaign performed to provide that assurance, with a focus on flight software testing for OBP’s first release. After an overview of On Board Planner itself, we place the V&V campaign in the context of earlier efforts to V&V autonomy for space applications, describe the behaviors tested and the tools and workflows to do so, and hone in on two case studies that demonstrate the OBP V&V process in action. We conclude by examining results, challenges, and key takeaways from the campaign and how they may inform future efforts to provide assurance for onboard autonomy.