First Ethernet Switch In Space 141
Rebecca will you marry me? writes "The ESA's Columbus laboratory module was added to the International Space Station in February, but Hewlett-Packard has only now chosen to reveal that the LAN onboard Columbus uses a ProCurve 2524 switch." HP admits it was the "most unusual and demanding" project ProCurve has done yet.
Title is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
I sent this in an e-mail to Taco when the article was still in the 'mysterious future' but that message must have been stopped by his spam filter or something.
Yeah yeah, I must be new here
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I doubt they'll change this, though, "Another switch in space" doesn't have the same ring to it, and neither will the ringing of their cash machine with titles like that.
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The correct action to take after reading my message would be to prevent the story from reaching the front page, since it's really a non-story if it's not the _first_ switch in space. Maybe it's the cash machine
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Is slashdot losing it's way on cutting edge stuff?
Fortunately, (Score:5, Funny)
Connect to the first router? (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive04/ciscoarch_042104.html
Resale value (Score:1, Funny)
And this is interesting because? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:5, Informative)
Brown.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Hmm... sounds like an expensive test plan. How about just testing g-forces in the lab?
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope for the sake of the ISS crew that it's "low rad" in the ISS.
The radiation the semiconductors don't like are heavy particles like neutrons which are extremely harmful to humans too.
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the reasons we try to limit the complexity of electronics sent out to space. (and additionally, shield the hell out of everything)
I believe the shuttle uses a computer comparable to a 386, for this reason.
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:5, Informative)
here are some other notes:
http://klabs.org/DEI/Processor/shuttle/ [klabs.org]
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:5, Informative)
The Orbiter uses the AP-101S, which was also used in military aircraft. NASA has a great deal of published history online regarding Shuttle Avionics here. [klabs.org]
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And this is interesting because? (Score:4, Informative)
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Nope. Why should it move, when there is no gravity to make hot air lighter than cold? Why would thermal currents form?
For example, they did experiments with candles. and they snuffed, because the hot air didn't move away and thus no new oxygen arrived at the flame.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_360.html
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Interesting article, especially :
In zero-g environments there can be no buoyancy forces, and thus no natural (free) convection possible....
The 2nd law of thermodynamic of course still applies, so the heat will eventually move away from the electronics, but much slower than through convection, where the heated air moves away and is replaced by cooler air. I would imagine it might be equivalent to enclosing the electronics in Styrofoam, which also keeps the air in place.
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So to sum it up, we can agree that there is no gravitational convection, however there is some smaller Rayleigh-Benard and/or Benard-Marangoni convection.
Which means, to use "off the shelf" equipment they either need to check carefully how much it relies on gravitational convection, or add forced convection by fans or mounting the equipment in a place where additional airflow exist anyway.
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Then there is cooling - even in the ISS you can't use convection since there is no up for the hot air to rise to.
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Of course that specific problem won't affect a switch, but there may be some other unexpected way in which atmospheric pressure is involved. It isn't necessarily easily tested in a high-altitude chamber, since (a
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Apollo flew with about 5 psi of pressure, and Shuttle would sometimes depress the cabin to 10.2 psi in prep for spacewalks, but IS
Penalty for f-ing up (Score:2)
http://www.futron.com/pdf/resource_center/white_papers/FutronLaunchCostWP.pdf [futron.com]
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The Apollo computer had to deal with high humidity.
I would think the ISS would have similar issues.
If not from normal usage, but also resistance to failure when some machine in the room leaks water bubbles.
Cool test methodology (Score:5, Interesting)
Makes one think more about all the radiation crewmembers get exposed to as well, even within the protective embrace of the Earth's magnetic field. That's one of the big hurdles to travel to Mars of course; long term exposure to varying levels of radiation (mostly from the Sun).
I just think it's geeky-cool that they put them in a particle accellerator for testing though.
Re:Cool test methodology (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cool test methodology (Score:5, Funny)
not necessarily, since It must be really hard to keep something ON THE SHELF in outer space.. =)
*drum rolls
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well.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well.... (Score:5, Funny)
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http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/delta/delta4/delta4.htm [boeing.com]
Delta IV vehicles can launch payloads weighing from 4,300 kg (9,480 lb) to 12,980 kg (28,620 lb) to GTO, and can lift over 23,000 kg (50,000 lbs.) to LEO.
I have not doubt a Delta IV Heavy Lifter can get your Civic to the ISS =)
Re:well.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:well.... (Score:4, Funny)
Rebecca! Save yourself!! (Score:5, Funny)
(before you mod OT look at submission again
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This guy is sick (Score:3, Informative)
When i read this, i felt the need to puke. This guy says he is together with his girlfriend for two years and want to marry her but yet he does still not know what she likes. And in order to find out he shows a total lack of integrity and installs a keylogger on her machine! This is a cruel break of trust. I really hope she finds out and tosses him. This is imho absolutely sick behaviour. And whats even worse that he apparently is even proud of his act of dishonesty and
is anyone paying attention? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:is anyone paying attention? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to greatly simplify this, but there are basically three networks onboard the space station. One is mostly off the shelf laptops and networking equipment that runs Windows and is used for crew support (email, procedures, timelines, photos, and such). It frequently needs maintenance, but it does the job. It's also (relatively) easy to certify and plug new hardware into it, so it can be updated frequently as commercial technology advances (for example, later this year the Thinkpad A31p laptops will be swapped out for newer models).
The second is a payload ethernet network that is used by the payload system to collect and downlink high volume data through the USOS Ku-band system. Failure of this network only impacts science collection and some support activities. These switches are part of this network. The standards are more stringent, but not to the level of stuff on which safety or mission success depends.
The third network is the core computer system, which is all custom built hardware/software wired up with MIL-STD 1553 data bus. This is the network which runs the core vehicle systems (life support, attitude control, what have you). The hardware and software are developed to a much more rigorous standard than the first two networks (and it obviously costs a lot more and is slower to update because the the long pole of certification and testing). Some of the machines on this network have been chugging along for nearly a decade without failure.
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The damn thing sat in a particle accelerator for three years and presumably still worked. Perhaps the Chinese can actually build these things ?
You point about MIL-SPEC is taken, however, presumably if HP were claiming it was MIL-SPEC they would have done the certification themselves.
They didn't and NASA did some certification themselves. I don't doubt
obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
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How will the RIAA/MPAA be able to sue them? (Score:1, Funny)
The "HAM" sats did it a decade ago (Score:5, Informative)
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Am I the only one... (Score:3, Funny)
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I'm not sure if you realize this, but 10base2 (aka thin net) doesn't use hubs. It's a shared 50 ohm coax with tees at each device and terminator plugs on each end. It uses CS/MACD like a hub, but the electronics and physical topology are totally different.
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vulnerability (Score:1, Troll)
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Another thought crime occurs in the UK when a scene depicting sexual activity with a child is created without actually involving any c
Cost? (Score:2, Interesting)
The only reason I can come up with is the possibility of higher packet loss with all of the radiation. Does anyone know for sure?
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Because any change on the systems aboard brings a paperweight of about 10MTon half duplex (first you send your request for change, then the change office challenges your intention, then you reissue, etc.) on average.
And it's a good thing too.
Re:Cost? (Score:4, Funny)
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Why is this news? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Most professional switches rely on fans for cooling.
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Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
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In space, the use of heat pipes [wikipedia.org] is also fairly common - I wonder when this technology will start being used with blades in colos, given the density you can rack mount blades.
Token Ring? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Cisco Equipment on ISS (Score:1)
The general assumption in the company was that that NASA was using Cisco routers and switches in the International Space Station. I volunteered to be the on-site SE.
So I doubt that the ProCurve switch is the first et
Delay Tolerant Internet (Score:2)
"Interplanetary Internet" - basically, making a TCP-like protocol in situations where there may be long delays and no end-to-end connectivity. I thought that there was a test of this on a shuttle flight but cannot find a link, Vint Cerf last year talked [www.cbc.ca] about a test in 2010.
To me, that is a lot more interesting than just having a switch in LEO.
Which is it? (Score:1)
Also from TFA: The switch underwent three years of development, configuration and qualification testing before it journeyed into space.
Huh?
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Also from TFA: The switch underwent three years of development, configuration and qualification testing before it journeyed into space.
Huh?
Radiation (Score:1)
Tell me the only network up will be hp switches, I'll just kill myself now.
A HP Procurve 2524!!! (Score:1, Troll)
It's a 24 10/100 port managed switch, with *optional* uplink modules at 1Gbps; fibre and copper available or some propriety stacking modules. It also has a couple of fans!!
There are far better switches that are passively cooled, use less power, are cheaper and better performing...
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So I guess it now drops packets (Score:1)
meanwhile on MIR (Score:2, Funny)
Procurve? Really? (Score:2)
These are switches for whom spanning tree is a foreign concept. They claim to support it, but default set up out of the box seems to be if you put 2 crossover cables between 2 procurve switches it will create a switching loop rather than disable one. Not a great idea when our product relies heavily on multicast. It took me a few minutes to figure out why the CPU usage on a workstation that I had just plugged in and hadn't installed anything on was at like 50-60% within about 2 minutes because I wasn't e
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Maybe they're just capable of configuring the switch before hooking it up to their network? It's not rocket science, after all.
According to the article, they tested switches from Cisco as well as D-Link, Avaya, 3Com and NetGear. They don't say why the chose the HP over the others though. They did make a mention of the simplicity of the circuits being beneficial, but didn't say whether Cisco's gear didn't survive the tests, or whether HP was simply the cheapest of the surviving devices.
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The only benefit I ev
HP Switches (Score:2)
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