Linux Rocket Blasts Off This Fall

HardcoreGamer writes "An Oregon amateur rocket group, the Portland State Aerospace Society, plans to launch a Linux-powered rocket weighing 12 pounds to 55,000 feet at a speed of Mach 3 in September, Wired News reports. The rocket's onboard computer is an AMD 586 processor and a Jumptec MOPS/520 PC/104+ board along with a power supply, a PCMCIA card carrier for an 802.11b card to transmit data to the ground, and a carrier board for a 128-MB CompactFlash card for long-term storage. The flight computer runs a stripped-down version of Debian Linux, with the 2.4.20 Linux kernel. The group will present a paper (HTML | PDF ) on the use of free software in rocketry at Usenix 2003. The real question is whether their network card will survive 10 seconds at 15 Gs!"

802.11b?

[DarkAurora]

802.11b for data transmission to the ground? I know my 802.11b network doesn't have a range of 55,000 feet.

Software

[fname]

Well, let's see how the software does; it's notoriously difficult [slashdot.org]to design rocket software.

But, I gather the greatest stresses will be on the computer hardware, as 10 G's will put a meaningful load on the parts, not to mention vibrational loads. And rockets are difficult to begin with. Here's hoping it works.

Ours is bigger.

[Boatman]

Ours [byu.edu] is bigger [lunkwill.org].

IANARS but...

[tankdilla]

I wouldn't be suprised to hear that rockets had been guided by linux all along. If I were involved in the launch of a rocket, i'd just like to know that the system is going to hold up and not get a bsod, freeze up, or just reboot while in flight. I mean if this is the first of its kind, that's an accomplishment. Kudos to the Linux rocket scientists. But we all know Linux is a pretty reliable OS and I would've been more suprised to hear that it didn't work.

But as previously posted, what OS has been guiding rockets? Wind-SCO-s?

Just the 802.11 card? I'd worry about the rest!

[barawn]

Heck, I'd worry about the CF card. I doubt it's a hard disk (of the spinny-type) as the paper states, as that'd crash on either liftoff or chute deployment. I'd bet it's a flash-type, just like a simple camera memory card. And then I'd wonder whether it'd survive too. Many of them have altitude restrictions (though I seriously doubt they're for real - it's probably a "don't use this in an airline design!" warning) as well. Remember to put some sort of retaining mechanism on the CF slot. Wouldn't want the card pulling out on liftoff, now would you. :)

Yipes. High-altitude, high stress stuff is always a pain (which is why aerospace companies make so much money designing things).

It'll definitely be cool to see if this works. The paper's a little light on details of the design (for certain things - like the actual construction or parts choices - for other things it seems pretty detailed).

hardware reliability

[albeit unknown]

10g is not a lot of acceleration for electronics, as long as large components are securely fastened (even with tie-wraps), and there are no moving parts.

The only non-solid-state parts on the design are the connectors, which can handle hundreds or thousands of g's of acceleration without "bouncing" on the pins.

PC-104 is designed for high-stress applications such as this.

Re:IANARS but...

[WhaDaYaKnow]

But as previously posted, what OS has been guiding rockets? Wind-SCO-s?

Uhm, nope. You know there _are_ other OSs out there besides Windows and Linux. Sure, a post like that makes for good Karma, but for crying out loud, what is the exact value of your post?!

I will tell you which OSs have been running stuff like this; real-time, embedded OSs, such as VxWorks, QNX and all the others. Until recently linux SUCKED ASS for real-time applications. I don't think even Torvalds would mind me saying so. It just wasn't designed that way. There have been major improvements lately, which are all very promissing, but for applications that really demand real-timeness, probably very few people (in their right frame of mind, no offense) would choose Linux.

Re:802.11b?

[tqft]

I seem to remember lots of people saying what use ham radio -
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/09/103425 4&mode=thread&tid=137

If you got a ham licence how far could you listen to your music from your home server with a LEGAL power boost

Free software, open hardware, and collaboration

[navigationboy]

Oh the shame, caught in the act. I'm guilty of snide remarks about a topic that's actually important.

Let me extend your comment with a concern of ours: the lack of technical collaboration between amateur aerospace groups.

When we started PSAS, there was very little posted on advanced amateur rocketry (especially avionics). Now there's a lot more, but for some reason many amateur aerospace groups either:

1) feel their technology is good enough to be proprietry (i.e., closed source), or

2) or they're too lazy to post their results.

Either way, the community loses and we have to slog through all the stupid mistakes in order to recreate what they've done.

This is incredibly frustrating - so when we started PSAS one of our goals was to always post everything we learned. We're open source, open hardware, and more importantly, open to the community: we're trying to collaborate with as many amateur groups as we can (in fact we've currently got collaborations going on with two other universities).

In fact, you should be able to recreate _everything_ we've done by following our history and getting the technical details (schematics, firmware, software, system diagrams) from our site.

So, to the BYU people with a _much_ bigger rocket :) - want a pretty good amateur avionics system that eventually will be capable of active guidance? Heck, you could lose the fins and get another few thousands feet.

Contact us, let's collaborate.

I realize you are joking...

[switched4OSX]

(and it is funny, by the way), but this attitude is not far from the truth. I happen to be a member of Tripoli (one of the associations that governs high power rocketry) and we currently have a letter writing campaign going on. The government is trying to make it harder for us hobbyist to get engines over certain power ratings. I guess they fear someone using these engines to power guided rockets. This is kinda silly, as most terrorist have access to better weaponry, ie Stinger missles. Of course, the gov is also afraid that the terrorist do all there planning on the internet, too.

Vibrations

[gwappo]

Judging from this [akamai.net] image from the article, their little machine isn't exactly vibration-proof.

Not sure if they tested for this but if they didn't I think this particular rocket might not go too far.

Doppler effect?

[RobNob]

How much will travelling at Mach 3 affect the frequency of the 802.11b signal received at ground level?

Re:Software

[Lumpy]

; it's notoriously difficult to design rocket software.

not for launch guidance. hell I dont even need to have a computer or software for launch control.

all analog electronics with a simple gyro controlling fin servos, with a timer to click in an analog circuit to change angle of acent...

it's insanely simple... how do you think VonBraun did it in the 30's? certianly without digital computers.

Re:15Gs, no problem!

[jaavaaguru]

His 20 Gs was probably referring to the deceleration as it hit the wall, since that's the strongest force it was submitted to.

drivers

[SHEENmaster]

I am sick of people thinking that Linux is lacking in drivers! All of my hardware works, period.

Try running windows on a Sun or Macintosh, see how well the drivers stack up then! We all know that a window sure as hell won't survive the G-Force.

To get this back on topic: Can an 802.11b card really reach the ground? I seem to remember that space is more than 300 feet away.

55,000 feet

[Anonymous Coward]

people are sayinig things about outer-space radiation and things like why specially-made software is better for maintaining an orbit. lets get a couple things straight. its going straight up and straight down (no orbit there) up to 55,000 feet (about 10 miles). the space shuttle orbits at 250 miles, for comparison. considering that and the fazct that most aircraft cruise at 35,000 feet with no problems for the laptops inside, radiation seems like a minor problem. yes, it could be a problem in the furure, but that has nothing to do with the current project.