Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for controlling hardware on a remote spacecraft. A system practicing the method first identifies a piece of hardware on a remote spacecraft and a desired action for the piece of hardware and generates a command packet configured to instruct the piece of hardware to perform the desired action. The system then generates a container packet for transmission to the remote spacecraft and embeds the command packet within the container packet such that the remote spacecraft decodes the embedded packet to cause the piece of hardware to perform the desired action. Then the system can transmit the embedded packet to the remote spacecraft. Also disclosed herein is a robust, fault-tolerant memory module having strings of memory modules configured with a correction module to detect and correct errors. The memory module can maintain high reliability against severe radiation, mechanical, and thermal effects.