Overview

Once a CubeSat launches, physical access to the hardware is no longer possible. Any bug fixes, feature additions, or security patches must be delivered remotely through OTA (Over-The-Air) firmware updates.

To safely support OTA updates, the flight software team requires:

• A structured firmware release workflow
• Reliable firmware version tracking
• Reproducible builds
• Artifact storage and traceability
• Validation that deployed binaries are authentic and approved

Firmware versioning is the first foundational step toward a robust flight software deployment pipeline.

Objectives

The firmware release system should enable the team to:

• Track exactly which firmware version is running on the satellite
• Associate firmware versions with Git commits and CI builds
• Prevent accidental downgrades or invalid updates
• Store reproducible binaries for testing and OTA deployment
• Ensure all OTA binaries originate from an approved artifact repository
• Support future firmware signing and validation mechanisms

High-Level Firmware Release Workflow

Step 1 — Developer Pushes Code

Developers implement features or bug fixes in a feature branch.