Product category: Embedded Software and Operating Systems
News Release from: Wind River Systems
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 24 July 2002
Cool award for microsatellite
Wind River has awarded the European Space Agency (ESA) its "Cool customer design" award for the PROBA (Project for Onboard Autonomy) microsatellite system
Wind River has awarded the European Space Agency (ESA) its "Cool customer design" award for the PROBA (Project for Onboard Autonomy) micro-satellite system - the first ESA spacecraft with fully autonomous capabilities. The PROBA satellite operates virtually unaided by ESA staff on the ground with the help of Wind River's market-leading VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS).
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 24 July 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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PROBA is currently in orbit 600km above the Earth's surface, testing the validity of self-functioning space technologies and performing several scientific activities to monitor the health of our planet.
"We chose Wind River's VxWorks operating system for PROBA because of its robustness and proven reliability on space missions", said Dominique Baudoux, Space Business Unit Program Manager for Spacebel - the subcontractor responsible for providing PROBA's flight software.
"Because PROBA operates virtually unaided, we needed a trustworthy operating system capable of reliable operation while in space.
PROBA is thus far a great success and we are very pleased with the software".
PROBA was launched via rocket by the Indian Space Research Organisation and sent into orbit on 22nd October 2001.
Further reading
Platforms add multicore support
Wind River has announced its support for Freescale Semiconductor's new Multicore Communications Platform
Honeywell pioneers Linux in space mission
Wind River Platform for Network Equipment, Linux Edition, will be the underlying operating system to support the processing of science and experiment data onboard the ST8 spacecraft
Platform packages networking technologies
It's a bold claim, but Wind River describes its latest offering as the device software optimisation (DSO) industry's most comprehensive advanced networking technology portfolio
Despite being very small in size and weight, the satellite boasts an extensive range of advanced capabilities and instrumentation.
PROBA has the ability to observe the same spot on Earth from a number of different angles, and has already provided scientists with detailed environmental images through its compact high resolution imaging spectrometer (CHRIS) - the main payload onboard the spacecraft.
Data from the lightweight instrument are sent automatically from PROBA to ESA's ground station in Redu, Belgium, allowing scientists to develop tools for environmental monitoring, forest cataloguing, crop forecasting and marine science.
Wind River's VxWorks RTOS controls all on-board functions of the PROBA satellite.
The unique capabilities of the VxWorks RTOS also help enable PROBA to upload new versions of software as it orbits the earth.
This functionality is based on Wind River's robust 'incremental linking' technology.
The scalability of the VxWorks RTOS also proved extremely important, as the operating system memory footprint was reduced to a minimum while reliably controlling all onboard instruments, tests and communications.
The VxWorks kernel accounts for less than 10% of the total lines of code onboard PROBA.
"Wind River has a strong history in space exploration including major projects with NASA and other agencies like the ESA, which speaks to the proven reliability of our technology", said Steve Blackman, director of marketing for Wind River's aerospace and defense business unit.
"Developers of spacecraft have been able to leverage Wind River's integrated, commercial-off-the-shelf software solutions and development tools to get to market much faster than by developing their own solutions or turning to other COTS vendors".
During its projected two-year lifetime, PROBA will be performing a series of scientific and housekeeping activities that can be planned, controlled and monitored by both the ground team and the satellite's onboard computer.
Functions that will be tested for autonomy possibilities include scheduling and planning of scientific experiments, data collection, communications between PROBA, scientific users, and the ground team, management of routine satellite functions, and failure detection.
Most satellites currently require interaction between the ground and the spacecraft to carry out similar activities.
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