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Open Source Satellite Control
Debra writes "Have you ever wondered how you harness a satellite control system written in three languages, on four development platforms, and deployed to multiple client environments? With open source, naturally. When one wrong move can cost millions, you must rely on teamwork, smart design, and open standards to keep the project -- if not the satellite -- from going down in flames. This article covers software engineering basics, taking advantage of outside solutions, and scripting multi-million-dollar manuvers."
Open source software is plenty stable -- when it's mature. But, when "one wrong move can cost you millions", can you afford a kernel oops because someone forgot a \n?
See, in this case, the nice part about commercial software is that you have someone to blame, and you at least stand a chance in court (IANAL, but it would be under contract law), so you have an opportunity to recoup your losses. In this case, an "oh yeah, fixed in CVS" isn't good enough.
This is a typical lame "filler" story. Move on.
what if you had a beowulf cluster of satelites?
:)
oh, that would be gps!
If you take a look at screenshot in Figure 4 of the document, you'll notice that the Open Source Satellite control is running on a closed proprietary operating system owned by Microsoft...
The start button is insidious.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Guineau epitomizes the control he keeps over platform-specific coding with his slogan, "If you feel the need to call a WIN32 API, come talk to me."
Don't do it! Its a trap! If you go to his office because you want to program a WIN32 API, there will be two "nice men" in his office waiting for you who will take you to a "better place", where you will be "safe"...
You know... It's too easy to be famous these days... just start any weird project and put an "Open Source" and "Linux Compatible" or "Microsoft Free" on it.
You mean... Open Source controlled satelites? What is next? Open Source ARM-Controlled inflatable dolls?
Well, we all know who might have trouble converting such things--NASA! ;-)
We all know that Windows was "found" in the startwars sattelite system after a "memory protection fault" required astranauts, including Bill G., had to fly to orbit to reboot it.
What only I know is that Windows crashes for a purpose. That purpose is to sell upgrades. Consumers are conned into believing this "progress". NASA has been conned into thinking that this ISN'T "extortion" or "blackmail".
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Did I see a Windows screenshot? Fer crissakes, people. If you want a decent satellite ops program, use OASIS. CCSDS compliant, multi-mission, multi-terminal, UN*X-based... None of this Java and Windows namby-pamby ops software. Yeesh.
I know how to take over a satellite's control system.. talk about taking security thru obscurity to a whole new level... AND.. if the interfaces are protected, they are very easily overflowable..
Example:
Really? Man with sound reasoning like that, you've convinced me!
I disagree - the running gags only get funnier as time goes on!
... I wonder if the developers fought over which scripting language to use for those million-dollar manuevers, PERL or Python?
I hold a patent on sigs...
why not just use Windows ME? It'll work.... hehehe, bastards.
seems most EULA's basically say it's not their fault if you use the software, and because of this, you screw something up, expensive or not. among other things, software makers, even commercial, can't always account for all possible uses of their software ... if they've missed something (like, say, interfacing with thing X will cause it to crash once in a million times) ... well, you didn't ask for custom software, now did you? with OSS, you can check it yourself ... possibly tweak it yourself, if you know that something else you're interfacing with might be quirky. and that's probably more to their taste than having the ability to take another company to court -after- something goes down ... yeah, satellites should be replaceable, given enough time ... but for, say, launch windows to other planets, you don't get another chance for a -long- time ... money's nice ... but getting it right the first time, and having the ability to fix stuff yourself, and feel confident in your own work, may be worthwhile.
Speaking of the benefits of Open Source for high-risk missions, perhaps that Mars probe would have fared better if only management had chosen to use Perl with the freely available Math::Units module!
That article seems to cover usage of open-source software being used by a structured team.
/. audience has always pulled for is open-structure teams, i.e. a thousand geeks looking at code and output to find flaws.
I think the
I know I for one am geeky enough to sit and stare for hours at sat telemetry and uplink commands for weird anomolies...nothing more exciting.
Amateur radio sats have been leaning that way, I hope someone gets around to it.
-Dan N7NMD/9W2DU
I really believe this is a great idea.
I would love to see big, important, public projects utilizing open source.
Actually, NASA satellite ops often uses generalized environments (was it called MOPS?) and mix contractor-produced customerware with in-house software or scripting. Then, use Perl to create stuff after launch that was needed, or to make stuff web-accessible (internal network only, sorry).
Perl and Tcl/Tk are still popular (Tk for GUIs, Tcl or Perl for scripting).
It's not GPLed open source but, within NASA, it is open source.
Many missions are trying to move away from the 'custom designed only-works-for-us' software because it becomes rapidly dated.
A.
The final frontier for bin Laden is space terrorism, and his army of elite Al-Qaeda hackers (like Junis) will read this article on slashdot and exploit open source code to attack us from the stars.
When will America finally wake up the threat of open source?
Rock on, Klerck!
-SexyKellyOsbourne
Nobody EVER gets any money from software vendors in lawsuits, contract or EULA. By spreading that myth, you perpetuate the "stupid consumer" model of software.
I don't know how you grew up, but I've always been taught "Buyer beware" is the the best model, and the most aware buyer is one who can intelligently check out the product he/she is buying.
If I was paying somebody for a service, I'd want to at least be able to satisfy my own curiosity about how well it works, at least so that I'll sign off on the check. I would want to know, ESPECIALLY if it was controlling my precious satelite.
In fact, I'd BET that for commercial satelites, the people funding any launch have teams of outsiders checking the code.
I could also imagine that at NASA, there is a mixture of vendor written and in-house written.
But don't fall for the "who ya gonna sue" stupidity......there's nobody, they're already gone.
They could've made it a little less obviously a commercial though. Seriously, "Migrate your VisualCafé applications to WebSphere Studio by following this three-part series of articles:"?
testing editor moderation.
editors will be the only "user" to be mod this down.
stop slashdot censorship!
Last time i checked maneuver was spelled maneuver, not manuver.
;)
I suppose this is how open source should behave... Working our way to an error free slashdot!
That's pretty good. (:
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
as opposed to the usual meaningless drivel pouring fourth from the mouths of the typical linux advocate like a fountain?
heaps different when youre on the recieving end of the same thing isnt it?
You should consider a career as a preacher.
Gong Hijacks TV Broadcasts Again
Beeing involved with TT&C I can tell you it is quite hard to loose a satellite once it is in position. Besides having a lot of redundancy and beeing fool proof in case something very wrong happends and he is about to crash into atmoshphere he will manouver itself out and place itself in a high orbit waiting slot. There is a funny storry about Telespazio Italia "loosing" a satellite. It was a scientific satelite. Periodicaly you had do do checks and orbit corections but when the checks were scheduled there was a technical problem and the guys that were supposed to fix it (the shift) were sleeping. As a consequence the satellite did get the telemetry controls at the right time and in 2 hours thought something verry wrong is happening and flew away in a safe position. It took them 4 months to get it back where it was supposed to be and shorten its life a lot doe to fuel consumtions. As for the software it was just about the time because 90% of the comercial and verry expensive software is full of crap.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
Um, if you need your last-minute heroism... it wasn't a remarkably potent design, now was it?
"Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
I know it's a bit off topic, but not too much so. The only thing that has kept me from buying a DirectPC set is that I would have to buy a new MS XP system to act a a gateway. Talk about security issues. Anyone know if it will run in a XP VM under Linux? Firewall issues? Matti
Keep in mind that this is for the ground control segment, not the onboard software. So what if it crashes? Just reboot it and try again. As long as no incorrect commands are sent to the spacecraft there is no problem.
Ground control segments are huge systems, and the number of problems in them is correspondingly high. Onboard software is much smaller, much much more mission-critical, and (hopefully) better written.
I work for a company doing ground control systems (but not really onboard software), so I do know what I am talking about...
Can I download the satellite control system source somewhere? Or did they just use a few open libraries?
Inadequate JVMs forced migration to Windows NT,
Not a particularly strong endorsement of open souce now, is it? I'm sure we'll see this used in MS literature describing the stability of MS products. Something like:
NT/2000/XP - So reliable, that the JPL uses it to control their satellites.
It's not just the government funded agencies or commercial satellite companies that use command and control systems. There are many amateur high altitude ballonists that need a way to send commands and receive data from payloads attached to balloons. Here in Colorado, Edge of Space Sciences is a group of enthusiasts that launch and recover high altitude balloons with a variety of payloads. They are always looking for volunteers to help with launch and recovery. There are similar groups thoughout the U.S.
Could someone who speaks English elaborate a little on what this is about?
you got the fp! now you just need to get a life
Some data about FedSat, a Scientific R&D microsatellite that's due for launch on the next H-2A from Tanegashima:
Firstly, the on-board software is in Ada-95, using the 3.13p version of GNAT as the compiler and RTEMS as the Run-time Kernel. Both Open-Source, and the 'p' in "3.13p" means public, free-as-in-beer. The on-board software was developed mostly by Software Improvements, a bunch of software professionals who are heavily into SLCMs, CMM, etc. And lo, it worketh, on-time, under-budget.
The ground station is another matter. OASIS was tried, but couldn't do all that was required. In a spectacular case of less-than-wonderful-judgement, VB on Windows was used for development. After a while, they got some software pros to work on that one too, rather than the hack'n'slash electronics engineers. Well, it partially works - enough so that a few months or years after launch, it will do most of what's wanted.
Moral: if it's important, and has to work first time, every time, do it in Ada and open source, and use the principles described in the parent article. If it's not so important, and can be fixed up afterwards, you're still better off using Ada, though Java's a good second choice. The only reason Ada's so good is that it makes it easy to adhere to good software engineering principles, such as teamwork, smart design, and open standards.
A.Brain, Rocket Scientist
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
I was hoping this article would be about open source software to control dish network and directtv satellite receivers for use with PVR software!