The Software of Space Exploration 45
David Boswell writes "The O'Reilly Network is running an article called The Software of Space Exploration that looks at a number of the software projects that NASA has released as open source under their NOSA license. It explores how they are using other free and open source projects for use in some of their missions. Information about the European Space Agency and other space organizations is also covered." From the article: "A number of tools allow you to track objects in space, from asteroids to shuttle missions. A consortium of scientists working in the field of celestial mechanics has released OrbFit as free software under the GPL. This software can compute the orbits of asteroids and predict an asteroid's future position. You can also track artificial satellites with several free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-freedom options. Amateur radio enthusiasts use Linux and these tools to hear transmissions from the space station or from other satellites in Earth orbit."
Armadillo Aerospace, John Carmack, and the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
While its highly proprietary code, it would give a sense as to what needs to be tracked during the duration of rocket flight and might interest others in aerospace engineering.
John has been very generous with his code throughout the years and I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this happen (unless he has outside investors that would object).
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] -- Exercise for the rest of us.
Re:Armadillo Aerospace, John Carmack, and the GPL (Score:3, Informative)
Or the government. I'm certain the software is classified as a munition under ITAR [wikipedia.org](International Trade in Arms Regulation). He'd require an export license to make it available. I'm not entirely sure he could even get one, the powers that be have become extremely picky about what they allow.
Apollo software is available? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Apollo software is available? (Score:4, Informative)
Fascinating stuff.
Re:Armadillo Aerospace, John Carmack, and the GPL (Score:2)
> if John Carmack would release the flight control
>software he has developed for Armadillo's prototypes.
>
>While its highly proprietary code, it would give a
>sense as to what needs to be tracked during the duration
>of rocket flight and might interest others in
>aerospace engineering.
I think in general we already know how to build flight controls for boosters. I'd be kind of interested, anyway. I've seen some pre
Re:Armadillo Aerospace, John Carmack, and the GPL (Score:1)
Re:Armadillo Aerospace, John Carmack, and the GPL (Score:2)
What needs to be tracked (and controlled) is already widely known - that's not the hard part. The hard part (and what ends up proprietary) is the actually doing of it. Since th
Way to go (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted, there are some things that require the kind of expertise and customization that open source wouldn't be appropriate for, and I'm sure some of NASA's efforts are classified. But wherever it's reasonable, open source is a supurb idea. Imagine how many CS geeks would love to contribute to NASA just for the fun of it!
Hack the planet! (Score:2, Funny)
WorlWind and other links (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know if Stellarium [stellarium.org] counts as "software for space exploration", but it's worthed. Celestia [shatters.net] too.
Great! The More Tools out there, the better. (Score:2, Interesting)
NASA software (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nasatech.com/software/ [nasatech.com]
There's some seriously interesting software in there.
Not mine tax dollars (ermm..., or ermmm...z) (Score:2)
Free as in ... (Score:5, Funny)
Why not public domain? (Score:2, Interesting)
--sabre86
Re:Why not public domain? (Score:3, Informative)
NASA's licensing [bna.com]
Re:Why not public domain? (Score:2)
Re:Why not public domain? (Score:2)
Not quite (Score:2)
As an aside, it is my opinion that NASA's embrace of Open Source is somew
Re:Not quite (Score:2)
The contractor initially has the copyright, since he is the creator of the work. The work, and its associated copyright, are then delivered to the government. That's for software written to the specifications of the government, when the government pays for the labor. If the contractor wants to keep the copyright, he can pay for the software development out of his own pocket. I've seen that done when the contractor thinks that the software may be a viable commercial product. It has to be d
ITAR Restrictions (Score:3, Insightful)
Theres also the issue of civil service vs. contractor development, as was already mentioned. JPL has developed a lot of fine software, but since they are a semi-private organization that needs pr
Re:ITAR Restrictions (Score:1)
we're using "free" trolls now? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Hey "editors", its ok to whittle down the submissions to the "News" part, and leave the sensationalism elsewhere.
NASA and Eclipse (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:NASA and Eclipse (Score:2, Funny)
Re:NASA and Eclipse (Score:2, Informative)
Incentives! (Score:2)
Re:Incentives! (Score:1)
Obligatory missing option post. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Obligatory missing option post. (Score:2, Interesting)
This is correct: all new ESA missions use SCOS-2000 [esa.int] to process and display telemetry and to prepare and monitor telecommanding. It currently runs on Solaris/SPARC or SUSE Linux/x86.
Current mission using SCOS-2000 include Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta and Smart-1 and coming missions, Herschel/Planck and GOCE will use it.
(
What do you mean? (Score:2)
Re:What do you mean? (Score:2)
I thought the software of space exploration was "Astroids"
More information on Asteroids [wikipedia.org].
For some reason... NASA and NOSA make me think of (Score:2)
OpenSourceAstronomy (Score:3, Informative)
www.openastro.com [openastro.com]
NASTRAN development (Score:3, Informative)
Oh No! Not Open Source! (Score:5, Funny)
</scarasm>
opensource.gsfc.nasa.gov (Score:4, Informative)
I'm working on some opensource software released under the NOSA license.
The general opensource website for GSFC is http://opensource.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
The software that I am specifically working on is called the OS Abstraction Layer (OSAL). If you code to its API, it will allow you to run code on a VxWorks, RTEMS, Linux, or Mac OS X system. It was designed for embedded flight software use. There will be a new version out in a few months that will employ memory protection. Believe it or not, but memory protection for flight systems has been very hard to do in the past.
Climate model on your Mac or PC (Score:1)
Good example of NASA software - CLIPS (Score:2)