The Housekeeping application (HK) is a core Flight System (cFS) application that is a plug in to the Core Flight Executive (cFE) component of the cFS.
The HK application is used for building and sending combined telemetry messages (from individual system applications) to the software bus for routing. Combining messages is performed in order to minimize downlink telemetry bandwidth. Combining certain data from multiple messages into one message eliminates the message headers that would be required if each message was sent individually. Combined messages are also useful for organizing certain types of data. This application may be used for data types other than housekeeping telemetry. HK provides the capability to generate multiple combined packets (a.k.a. output packets) so that data can be sent at different rates (e.g. a fast, medium and slow packet).
The HK application is written in C and depends on the cFS Operating System Abstraction Layer (OSAL) and cFE components. There is additional HK application specific configuration information contained in the application user's guide.
User's guide information can be generated using Doxygen (from top mission directory):
make prep
make -C build/docs/hk-usersguide hk-usersguide
cFS Framework (cFE, OSAL, PSP)
An integrated bundle including the cFE, OSAL, and PSP can be obtained at https://github.com/nasa/cfs
The cFS is a platform and project independent reusable software framework and set of reusable applications developed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This framework is used as the basis for the flight software for satellite data systems and instruments, but can be used on other embedded systems. More information on the cFS can be found at http://cfs.gsfc.nasa.gov