Mercury introduces first safety-certifiable, SOSA-aligned mission computer for aviation platforms

Mercury Systems, Inc., a technology company that delivers mission-critical processing power to the edge, today introduced the first safety-certifiable, SOSA-aligned aviation mission computer, which will allow government and commercial organizations to field and modernize aircraft that support next-generation applications such as those enabled by 5G communications and artificial intelligence.

Mercury’s new ROCK3 is a DAL-certifiable, 3U OpenVPX mission computer that features Intel Core i7 safety-certifiable processors and delivers up to 20 times the performance of PowerPC-based aircraft computers. ROCK3 is purpose-built to support advanced, safety-critical applications for military and urban mobility aircraft including mission management, sensor fusion and processing, and surveillance. ROCK3’s open architecture allows customers to break vendor lock and eliminate stovepiped systems to enable greater application interoperability and deploy new capabilities faster and more cost-effectively.

ROCK3 leverages lessons learned from Mercury’s participation in the U.S. Army’s Aviation Mission Common Server (AMCS) program, which was intended to develop a single mission computing architecture for the Army’s rotorcraft fleet that would allow them to store, process, and transport data and serve as application network nodes across the battlespace.

“With ROCK3, current and next-generation aircraft can increase safety and survivability by leveraging advanced sensors and data fusion applications to give pilots more accurate and timely information to make decisions, identify targets, and avoid hazards,” said Roya Montakhab, Mercury’s SVP of Integrated Processing Solutions. “ROCK3 represents a new path for aviation organizations to field more affordable, scalable, interoperable, and sustainable avionics solutions using open architectures.”

Mercury’s ROCK3 features:

- 11th Gen Intel Core i7 quad core processors with integrated GPU

- DO-254 and DO-178C artifacts, certifiable up to DAL-A

- Rugged, SWaP optimized

- Discrete, MIL-STD-1553, ARINC-429, RS-485, CAN avionics interfaces

- Certifiable RTOS, CAST-32A compliant

- 32GB DDR4 with ECC

- 64 MB FLASH

- 80GB M.2 SSD storage

Mercury will be demonstrating a number of next-generation mission computing applications alongside industry partners at the Army Aviation Mission Solutions Summit 2025.