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Old 4th June 2013
punk0x29a punk0x29a is offline
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Default OS'es in outer space

I've read that NASA made an auction for 286 CPU's not a long time ago...

As it turns out, last time - when they made an upgrade - they rocket gone boom-boom, 'cause fuel-flow-controlling-app, which worked around very hardware-limited int range became lost in a land of long, modern int's...
And it pumped fuel... And it pumped fuel... And even more fuel...

And now I'm wondering:

What are they using in space?

NetBSD? Of course it runs NetBSD, but I'm not so sure about it...

There are great videos from ISS on the net, and one can see a lot of unfamiliar, swastika-like, red-green-blue-and-yellow signs on their thinkpads...
//But these are just personal desktops ;-)

What runs on the CRITICAL computers?
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Old 4th June 2013
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http://search.nasa.gov/search/search...uters+in+space
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Old 4th June 2013
daemonfowl daemonfowl is offline
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Nasa was quoted by some as being using Fedora (on land)
NetBSD has the historical fame for running Sam II .. and is most portable and most scalable while still being Energy-saving .. OpenBSD is most secure and I recall Sir Theo de Raadt was asked by some NASA guy(s) how to implement Puffy
If not the BSDs .. then what ??
one-eyed lover ? ok ok .. I mean on Mother Gaia .. not on space particularly .. but again wouldn't this economical crisis hinder space-oriented activity from thriving these coming years ??
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Old 5th June 2013
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You must have missed the link I provided above, daemonfowl It is full of documents, images, news releases, and podcasts. From NASA. On the subject of computers in space.
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Old 5th June 2013
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by daemonfowl View Post
If not the BSDs .. then what ??
  • NASA is a large organization spread across several sites with groups with wildly different needs. No single platform is used across the entire organization, nor should there be.
  • NASA also has to support hardware/software combinations which were adopted decades ago. Due to the rigid requirements made on testing & the length of time need to complete thorough testing, new software just isn't an option.
  • Because of some of the demands made (low power, meagre hardware complements requiring minimal software, etc.) on the solutions developed, VwWorks was commonly used back in the '90's & early 2000's, & is still in use today.
The shuttle program (circa 1980's - 2000's) was designed in the 1970's. Much of the software used had to be bulletproof at the time of implementation. This is why Fortran was commonly the implementation choice.

Last edited by ocicat; 5th June 2013 at 04:27 AM. Reason: correct date ranges...
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Old 5th June 2013
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I believe that the ISS has recently made the switch to some type of Linux.
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Old 5th June 2013
punk0x29a punk0x29a is offline
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hitest: http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1...opslan-051213/ ; tru

jggimi: I'll check'em all out in a free time. Stupid me, should've visited them long time ago ;-)

ocicat: very interesting, and it matches what I've heard/read... Can You post/link some more when You'll have time?
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Old 5th June 2013
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by punk0x29a View Post
Can You post/link some more when You'll have time?
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Old 6th June 2013
punk0x29a punk0x29a is offline
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Thanks...


Hmmm...
Now that is one die-hard fu...

http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/argon16.htm

Completion of development: 1973.

Beginning of production: 1974.

Termination of production: still in production.

During 25 years of operation no failures of the system were noted when working in control systems.

--

Earth-ISS transportation goes down by Soyuzes, right ? ;-)

Hmm... I dont know if we can talk about "operating system" with this kind of hardware... More like Operator Program, I guess...



For interested: http://web.mit.edu/slava/space/computers.htm



--

Back to NASA:

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/hecc/resources/endeavour.html

SUSE?! Now that's suprising...

Historically:
http://history.nasa.gov/computers/contents.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrwpXEiTDVk
OS/360 was a real McCoy...


So, what about the future?

http://singularityhub.com/2013/06/05...e-lab-at-nasa/

" Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? "
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Old 6th June 2013
daemonfowl daemonfowl is offline
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Wow this thread has grown very much interesting and colorful !!
Much thanks to ocicat, jggimi,hitest and of course to punk0x29a !

:-)
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Old 6th June 2013
Ninguem Ninguem is offline
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NASA had used SPARC/Ultra(64)SPARC equipment at the Wallop's Island facility. Wallops is the satellite for the Goddard facility. Depending on the project, I am aware that there are some (Ultra)SPARC chips used on small satellites.
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Old 12th March 2014
censored censored is offline
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I imagine that, excepting for laptops - space-borne systems are mostly the domain of microcontrollers of this sort or that, and various manifestations of RTOS operating systems. I'm pretty sure that FreeBSD ports has the RTEMS RTOS, which I believe had various space applications (like ballistic missile control).
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