Date Space Craft CPU Note:

1972 Pioneer 10 and 11

Custom CPU in TTL Early on CPU's were implemented by many chips, basically building the gates of a CPU with a custome intructionset. This was very reliable but weighed a lot.

1976 Viking

NOTE that the Viking did NOT use the 1802 microprocessor. This has been widely and falsely reported on the web and is being corrected. It was only used in the Galileo and the Space Shuttles.

{{--RCA 1802 The 1802s used in space are built using Silicon-on-Sapphire which is much more stable in a radiation environment. --}}

1977 Voyager 1 and 2

NOTE that the Voyagers did NOT use the 1802 microprocessor. This has been widely and falsely reported on the web and is being corrected. It was only used in the Galileo and the Space Shuttles.

{{--RCA 1802 (3 of them at 6.4MHz) --}}

1981 Space Shuttle

Intel 8086 and RCA 1802 (display controller) - Later Intel 80386 The Space shuttle uses the APA-101S computer (5 of them for redundancy). They run at about 1.2MIPS and still use a couple megs of ferrite core memory (which is impervious to radiation). The entire control software for the shuttle is less then one meg. The new glass cockpit in the shuttle runs on Intel 80386s

1989 Galileo

RCA 1802 using SOS (Silicon-on-Sapphire) radiation hardened (Rad-Hard) technology.

1990 Hubble Space Telescope

Originally a DF-224 (8-bit).

First service mission added a 386 coprocessor.

The Hubble now runs on a 80486

1996 Pathfinder

BAE RAD6000 The RAD 6000 is a radiation hardened IBM POWER CPU made by British Aerospace Electronics.

1996 Sojourner (on Mars)

Intel 80C85

1998 International Space Station

Intel 80386SX-20 w/ Intel 80387 There are several computers on the ISS. The most important are the command computers which use the i386.

2004 Spirit and Oppurtunity Rovers

BAE RAD6000 (25MHz Max) The RAD6000 is becoming very popular for space applications.