Pricing made clear
Use Explorer at no cost, then move up as your program grows.
Individual engineers evaluating Spacebackend
- 1 ICD document per month
- Up to 500 generated LOC
- PDF and Excel ICD upload
- CCSDS and PUS extraction
- Python output
- Community forum access
Subsystem teams of 2-5 engineers
- Up to 5 concurrent ICDs
- 50,000 generated LOC / month
- PDF, Excel, and XML upload
- CCSDS, PUS, MIL-STD-1553
- Python and C output
- Unit test suite generation
- Email support within 1 business day
Full mission programs with multi-subsystem ICDs
- Unlimited ICDs
- Unlimited generated LOC
- Requirements traceability matrix export
- Custom interface standard profiles
- ECSS-E-ST-70-41C compliance hints
- Priority support with response SLA
- CLI and CI/CD integration guide
Launch-critical programs with safety classification requirements: [email protected] for custom arrangements.
What plans include
| Feature | Explorer | Team | Program |
|---|---|---|---|
| ICD document limit | 1 / month | 5 concurrent | Unlimited |
| Generated LOC / month | 500 | 50,000 | Unlimited |
| C output | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Python output | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Test suite generation | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Traceability matrix | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Interface standards | CCSDS, PUS | CCSDS, PUS, MIL-STD-1553 | All + custom profiles |
| Support channel | Community forum | Email (1 business day) | Priority + SLA |
| Team members | 1 | Up to 5 | Unlimited |
Common questions
Spacebackend reads PDF, including tabular ICDs with field definition tables, Excel (.xlsx) using one-packet-per-sheet or flat row-per-field layouts, and XML in schema or flat description formats. Explorer supports PDF and Excel only. Team and Program also support XML.
Your team owns all generated code. Generated Python and C files contain no Spacebackend attribution in their headers and carry no license restrictions. You may incorporate them into flight software or test systems. The output is yours.
Spacebackend produces code starting points rather than certified flight software. Have your engineering team review each generated module before flight use. For formal safety classifications, your team reviews, adapts, and accepts responsibility for the output within its V&V process. The Program plan's traceability matrix export supports that review workflow.
LOC per month counts non-blank, non-comment lines across all generated Python and C files produced during a billing month. A typical 100-field ICD generates roughly 800-1,200 LOC for a Python packet module and its test suite. The Team plan's 50,000 LOC allowance covers approximately 40-60 ICD documents, depending on complexity.
Not currently. Spacebackend runs as a cloud service. Programs whose data classification requirements prevent cloud processing can contact us at [email protected] to discuss options.
Every generation run creates a timestamped archive. Generated files have a header comment identifying the ICD version and Spacebackend run ID. Regenerating after an ICD update creates a separate archive for comparison with the previous one. Your team manages version control for generated output, which is plain text intended for Git commits.