As NASA and other agencies continue to undertake ever challenging remote sensing missions, the ability of satellites and space probes to diagnose and autonomously recover from faults will be paramount. In addition, a more pronounced use of radiation-susceptible components in order to reduce cost makes the challenge of ensuring system dependability even more difficult. To meet these and other needs, a processing platform for space is currently under development at Honeywell Inc. and the University of Florida for an upcoming NASA New Millennium Program mission. Among other features, the platform deploys an autonomic software management system to increase system dependability. In addition, a mission manager has been investigated and developed to provide an autonomous means to adapt to environmental conditions and system failures. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the management system philosophy with a focus on the adaptable mission manager. A case study is presented that highlights the dependability and performance improvement provided by the mission manager and autonomic health monitoring scheme.