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The Software of Space Exploration

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the software-in-spaaaace dept.

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."

4 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Way to go by Bob3141592 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    NASA should be commended for embracing open source software in some of their applications. Much of what they do would benefit greatly from the efforts of a community which is most supportive of their goals. I used to work as a contractor at NASA doing data reduction algorithms on Landsat, and that would be an ideal app for open source efforts. The data is public, so why not the software related to it as well?

    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!

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    In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
  2. WorlWind and other links by Lord+Satri · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article discusses NASA WorldWind but several interesting links are missing. Amongst them: Punt, a WW fork. Heck, you can also see Microsoft Virtual Earth data in NASA WorldWind itself. Even Mars 3D in WW. (I stop here, if this interests you, read slashgeo.org ;-))

    I don't know if Stellarium counts as "software for space exploration", but it's worthed. Celestia too.

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    Animoog.org
  3. NASA software by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Informative

    Your tax dollars paid for it. Download it here.

    http://www.nasatech.com/software/

    There's some seriously interesting software in there.

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    Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
  4. Free as in ... by NoMoreBits · · Score: 5, Funny

    You mean free as in cheese