Altium sponsors Brazilian space research

Altium has concluded a sponsorship deal with Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, Space and Atmospheric Sciences Division.

Altium has concluded a sponsorship deal with Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, Space and Atmospheric Sciences Division.

Under the sponsorship deal, Altium will equip the research team with its revolutionary Altium Designer system, which unifies electronic design by integrating board-level design, FPGA-level system design and embedded software development within a single application.

Altium's world-class Global Customer Care team will support the researchers as they develop the Institute's advanced X-ray astronomy satellite, Mirax.

"Altium is committed to promoting innovation in electronics design and development", said Nick Martin, founder and CEO, Altium.

"This sponsorship is an exciting opportunity for Altium to continue our commitment to supporting and equipping electronic designers and engineers with electronic product development solutions to meet the design challenges that complex and innovative projects, such as Mirax, demand".

Mirax (Monitor and Imager of X-rays) is an approved mission of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), and is being undertaken by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

The Engineer and Space Technology Division of INPE is responsible for the satellite platform whereas the launch will be provided by AEB.

This will most likely be performed using the Brazilian satellite launch vehicle VLS.

The Mirax scientific instruments currently being developed by the Space and Atmospheric Sciences Division of INPE consist of three X-ray cameras.

The detector technology for Mirax must be flight tested via stratosphere balloon.

The team must develop a test detector that will be integrated into a balloon platform, with the entire detector system to be flown at 40km above the atmosphere where stellar X-rays can be seen.

The balloon platform electronics need to be developed rapidly, and with semi-space reliability.

The team will rely on Altium Designer to meet these challenging project goals.

The balloon flight is scheduled for the second half of 2006.

"The Altium Designer system provides some unique capabilities that I believe will assist our team to complete this project successfully within the challenging deadlines", said Dr Joao Braga, Head of the Space Institute's Spatial and Atmospheric Science Division.

"The unified nature of Altium Designer and its interactive design flows will make the development process faster and easier, and we are extremely pleased to have Altium support this project so generously".

Details of the sponsorship package were presented to the Institute by Altium's Board Director, David Warren.

It consists of four Altium Designer Unified Nexar-Protel licences, four NanoBoard-NB1 development breadboards, four each of Xilinx Spartan III and Actel Flash 600K daughterboards, and access to extensive high-level support via Altium's Global Customer Care team.

This sponsorship package follows a similar sponsorship for the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Tasmania, Australia, announced in April 2005.

One of the largest corporate sponsorships to date for the School of Mathematics and Physics, Altium donated cash, software, hardware, and support to the University of Tasmania Foundation.

This donation was to support the development and completion of two projects - a radio transient detector and high-bandwidth interferometer.

Both projects relate to advanced radio astronomy research being undertaken at the School of Mathematics and Physics.

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