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Red Hat Software Businesses Debian Linux Business

Linux In Space: Red Hat Rides The Rocket 138

Posted by Hemos from the blasting-off-with-red-hat dept.
neiljt writes "BBC News have a piece on NASA experiments to use IP for space missions. The article is a little low-tech, but more details available from NASA (OMNI). Is this the first Red Hat in space?" It's worth pointing out as well that Debian made the ride nearly six years ago. Still, great news.
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Linux In Space: Red Hat Rides The Rocket More

Linux In Space: Red Hat Rides The Rocket

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  • As usual debian beats the nasdeq boys.
    • I don't have the source, but I thought I remember reading NetBSD was used in space for some of the specialized computer systems. Something about how NetBSD could be ported to most anything and being very robust too. I'm sure this was for the odd ball computer systems with home brew processors and the like, but I thought it was interesting and put NetBSD in really good light for fast prototyping systems.

  • Uh oh.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by mistermund ( 605799 )
    "The project will allow mission scientists to use a standard web browser to monitor spacecraft and to swap data with them or their crew."

    So what happens when 7337 HaXorz find the conveniently unsercured web interface which lets them control the shuttle robot arm?

  • FlightLinux Project at NASA (Score:5, Informative)

    by jim.b0b ( 559877 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:10AM (#5195419)
    It seems NASA had a Flight Linux [nasa.gov] project that ended in June 2002. Interestingly enough, they link back to slashdot in their publications listing.
  • "To test the technology the Columbia space shuttle was fitted with an embedded PC that has a 233 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM and a solid-state 144 MB hard drive. " I remember when nase used to be the technology leader...people used to brag about how this product came from nasa...what happened...budget cut backs must be really hurting them if they're sending that computer to space...my dell x5 with 512 mb compact flash can outperform NASA equipment....man i'd love to goto nasa and brag to them about my pda...
    • As I am sure you know, the only reason NASA ever use "older" tech is because they know the bugs in those systems, they know what can go wrong and therefore can work aroudn it. Dependability and reliablity is more important than the MHz or RAM. So quite why they are using anything to do with teh Net is beyond me, could you imagine it... "Houston, we have a problem... we can't get Pron, could you check the connetcion please!"

    • Re:NASA...cutting edge?? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hcdejong ( 561314 ) <hobbes@x m s n e t . nl> on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:25AM (#5195500)

      They have good reason not to use bleeding-edge technology, similar to the military still using 486 and early Pentium processors in things like the F-22.

      The electronics are probably radiation-hardened, and tested up the wazoo (if not mathematically proven correct) before being allowed in the Shuttle. This is what makes the space program so expensive.

      And Nasa isn't the 'bureau of trailblazing technology'. They used to be, because the things they did weren't possible with then-current technology. Today, you don't need to 'invent the wheel' to go into space anymore, it's been done.

    • Lets see how well your 733T PDA works in a space enviroment after its been hit with a few cosmic rays. Idiot.

    • budget cut backs must be really hurting them if they're sending that computer to space

      So what makes you think they didn't consider faster processors?

      For all you (and I) know NASA could have performed tests indicating that modern 3Ghz prosessors are more prone to bit errors caused by radiation in space than older processors.

      The difference in cost between a fast prosessor and a 233Mhz on isn't likely to affect the budget of a space shuttle launch, (hell, the 233 may be a custom job and cost more for all we know) so I expect that when nasa engineers went for the slower one they had a damn good reason

      Besides the computer is supposed to be used for transferring data back to NASA, how much processor do you need for that? It's not like they'll be recompiling their kernel a lot in orbit is there?

    • Oh, bugger off. It's a tool designed to do a job, which is not to be flashy, or out-perform your frickin' PDA. Has your PDA been tested in a vacuum? extremes of heat and cold? shock, vibration? radiation? had x thousand hours of burn testing? have a power draw of less than x milliamps? Think, for godsake, think.
    • There are other things to worry about than speed. Is it Alpha-hardened? Can it consume as few watts as possible? Can the components survive the G-forces and shocks of flight?

      One might consider the task of engineering current technology to withstand difficult environments to be just as hi-tech and valid as merely getting the most Ghz out of a chip.

    • Re:NASA...cutting edge?? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      When I worked for NASA as a contractor on an engine test stand, we had a fast track "proof of concept" project to replace the Space Shuttle Main Engine control computer with "modern technology". Seems that some ambitious young engineer had caught the attention of management and crusaded to bring this particular component "out of the dark ages", so he rolled up his controller code and did the engine interface with a laptop, this primarily to rub in the notion that this could be done with off-the-shelf hardware. The thing had a beautiful graphical interface too. The engine started up just fine, but when he tried to throttle up we had a wonderfully spectacular explosion and fire. It seems that his control algorithm didn't bother to implement all of the safeguards that were a part of the hardware of the "antiquated" control computer.

      The best part was watching the "old hands" on the test stand shaking their heads at the fundamental errors this "new technology" had introduced. Many of these guys had worked with Werner Von Braun himself and had already learned (from their mistakes) not to do what the fancy new controller was doing. That knowledge has been embedded in those old controllers. A reimplementation on more modern hardware is a fine idea, but one must understand completely what works. IMHO, once you invest the study to understand the working system you come away thinking it's not so bad after all...
    • Nasa uses 2/386's because radiation effects these chips wider transistor paths MUCH less than the current 2.4 GHZ models. There are several orders of magnitudes difference in the size of those internal chip traces. The smaller the path, the more solar radiation affects it.
      • You dont know what you are talking about.

        NASA uses IBM AP-101 chips in the shuttle. See here [nasa.gov] and here [edmitchellapollo14.com]
        Also most space based applications use 8/16 bit chips because most spaced based applications don't require more than that and the wider the CPU register, the more parity bits are required. Thats why most satellites use 8-16 bit chips.

        The robot used on mars [nasa.gov] was an 8 bit 8085.

        Please get your facts straight before posting.
    • They do use very slow computers in flight. They need to. The error rates, which are caused by solar radiation, are high enough with the slow stuff and get much worse as the feature size decreases on the chips. There are some spots over the earth (south Atlantic, I believe), where they need to reboot all of the PC's after they clear the area, because the earth's radiation shield isn't as effective there.

      Most satellites, especially if they are in higher orbits than the shuttle's use very slow/old processors. There are satellites being launched right now by both government and non-government organizations that have chips like the mil-spec 1750A where they measure clocks in single and double digit megahertz and memory in kilobytes. There are some very smart people writing that code...

      I've also actually held the 30 pound laptops that they use on the shuttle. (I work for NASA. *grin*) On Earth, they are pretty unwieldy, but of course in 0 gravity having a lot of mass is a good thing to increase stability.

    • Because it works. 233's have been around for almost 10 years now and are a proven technology. You don't trust multi-billion dollar spacecraft to brand new components. Anyway, for what they are using it for a P233 with 128Mb is actually a little overpowered.

      Please bear in mind that the computers that control the shuttle use technology from the 70's and 80's.

    • Heat dissipation in space (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Heat dissipation in space is a factor. I recall something about a regular plastic flashlight that MELTED in the shuttle bay because without an atmosphere even the few watts generated by a flashlight won't go no where.

      If this PC will also be used in a vacuum, heat dissipation will become a major problem. Cooling a 70W processor would be a major engineering challenge and no, a simple heatsink fan won't cut it.

      If so inclined, try putting your (dude, i got a) Dell into a vacuum chamber and see how long it lasts.
  • The United States government favors Microsoft products while NASA favors Linux? Hah. Which organization would you trust your tax dollars with more?


    • The United States government favors Microsoft products while NASA favors Linux?

      Don't be too quick to paint with that broad brush.

      NASA is a large and somewhat disparate organization. Especially when it comes to IT resources. There are large-scale official directions and policies for a NASA Center's IT (and with One NASA - perhapse the entire organization) that may or may not hold true when it comes to individual Divisions or projects.

      For example, Johnson Space Center (JSC) has been a pretty solid Microsoft shop over the past several years. Much of this was spearheaded by JSC's former CIO, Jack Garman who set an aggressively pro-Microsoft policy. The policy was so aggressive, that it lead to the infamous "Mac Attack" jihad at JSC - eventually leading to a Congressional inquiry. Yet JSC is not all-Microsoft.

      JSC has a variety of IT resources in its environment. JSC's datacenter is chock full of hardware running various flavors of Unix. Many engineering environments include Unix workstations / labs to churn the various modeling and CAD applications needed (although this is another common battlefield between Unix and WinNT/2K). Macs are still around - and somewhat more common than during the old Jihad days. Linux pops up more and more often with "Linux compatability" becoming more a concern for IT architects.

      So does NASA favor Linux? No. Not in a policy sense (or at least, not yet). But NASA is just the kind of environment where Linux has and continues to flourish.
      • I live right next to JSC. I spoke with a guy in the weather modeling section about a year ago at an open house event. He said that they are slowly moving in the direction of Linux, but that there is no reason to abandon their Unix boxes (he had an HP unix maxhine) at the present time as they tended to work fine and would for the forseeable future.
        • Don't forget that Slashdot has reported [slashdot.org] other installations of Linux at JSC. And it might be interesting to note that even during Garman's reign, MOD (the Directorate that handles Mission Control) had a standard install that involved a dual-boot Linux and Windows environment.


          ...they are slowly moving in the direction of Linux, but that there is no reason to abandon their Unix boxes (he had an HP unix maxhine) at the present time as they tended to work fine and would for the forseeable future.

          Sure. The HP/UX machines are fine workstations. And it makes sense to get full use of that investment. But eventually it comes time to re-up support contracts or replace hardware. This is the time that management often looks at cheaper alternatives. That's traditionally been Windows.

          Linux offers a way to keep a Unix(like) environment and take advantage of commodity hardware. It helps that more and more of the apps used by EA are now available for Linux.

          With all that in consideration, there's little suprise that even the CIO's office has been taking and interest in Linux. One will see it more often in the JSC IT environment.

          Of course - one will probably see more Macs. And continue to see HP/UX and Sun workstations / servers. And Windows servers. And the plethora of Windows office automation desktops.

  • IP (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dibblah ( 645750 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:23AM (#5195496)
    OK. Can we get this straight, please? IP!=Internet. There are these little things on the internet called routers. They allow traffic to pass between things called 'networks'. A router on a network is an OPTIONAL thing. Without a router connected to to The Internet(tm), THERE AIN'T NOBODY GETTING IN. Moving to standard IP is a _good_ thing. It allows them to use 'standard' tools. Rather than writing everything from scratch. I wouldn't even think that they'll be implementing this in 'mission critical systems' until after it's been tested for a _long_ time. Sheesh. I know hackers and script kiddies are an irritant, but NASA ain't all that stupid.

    • But there is the small matter of the link between Shuttle and earth being wireless, and thus easy to hack. Easier now than ever, thanks to using IP instead of a weirdass NASA-only protocol you'd have to reverse-engineer before being able to break in.

      • Re:IP (Score:2)

        by Roofus ( 15591 )
        Well that's true, unless the IP is encapsulated in some other NASA protocol. This could be useful by letting various shuttle devices talk plain old IP, while a shuttle computer encapsulates it into another transport medium. Think something like a wireless DOCSIS.
      • Maybe if you have a few billion dollars burning a hole in your pocket. The normal link between the Shuttle and the ground is through the TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay System) satellite network. This is a set of satellites in geosynchronous orbit that relay data between NASA spacecraft and the WSGT (White Sands Ground Terminal) in New Mexico. This is not something that you are going to emulate with a Pringles can and some surplus microwave equipment.
      • Buying comm equipment that uses some "weirdass nasa protocol" is extra super expensive... besides they want different spacecraft to be able to relay data, especially at Mars. With IP a NASA rover can relay data to an ESA spacecraft and the ESA spacecraft can relay the data back to Earth.

        The actual commands sent to spacecraft are still some weirdass NASA-only command set, and everything's encrypted, and you need to drop down a few hundred million for a tracking station to even have a shot at 'hacking' a spacecraft.... so I don't think this stuff is easy to hack.

  • Isn't this a new first for Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:27AM (#5195514) Homepage
    In the case of Debian, it was simply controlling an experiment in the shuttle, whereas now it's being tested as part of the communications system for the ship itself.

    BTW, that astronaut lady looks cute. Too bad they couldn't get a better picture of her.
  • Perhaps Linux needs a 'certified for use in outerspace' logo. I'd slap one of those on my redhat box.

  • Windows 98 (Score:3, Funny)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:31AM (#5195535) Homepage Journal
    also was launched [svlug.org] into space (or near?), even by linux fans. Sky is not as far as it used to be.

  • VOIP in space = not new (Score:3, Informative)

    by forged ( 206127 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:36AM (#5195557) Homepage Journal
    The article talks about IP in general, and of course it makes sense. I'd like to remaind us that VOIP to be more specific, was already featured [gcn.com] last year ! They flew IP-telephony software from Cisco to the ISS and tried calling home with great success. IP makes adding voice to data (or the other way round however you want to see it) a reality.

    and contrary to analog radio transmission which are prone to interferences and background noise/hiss, VOIP actually makes a lot of sense in space. All it requires is a data channel with limited bandwidth (64kbits is plentiful) but short delay, and the voice quality is just as good as with a regular phone call.

    Maybe NASA saw in IP a cheaper alternative for astronauts to get pr0n than having to fly (heavier) tabloid magazines to space? :->

  • i'd love to see the traceroute output on that one ;).

  • Ride the rocket (Score:3, Funny)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Friday January 31, 2003 @08:38AM (#5195566) Homepage
    "Redhat rides NASAs Rocket"
    "Debian eats NASAs pineapple"
    "Mandrake tries to put the pin back in."
  • Hope they're using the version of RedHat that will be supported after 31st Dec 2003...

    Seriously, it'd be neat. ./sat-hack ip.of.sat.ellite
    Sending overflow....
    root@satellite# ping www.google.com
    PING www.google.com (216.239.53.101) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from www.google.com (216.239.53.101): icmp_seq=1 ttl=41 time=5173 ms
    64 bytes from www.google.com (216.239.53.101): icmp_seq=2 ttl=41 time=3111 ms
    64 bytes from www.google.com (216.239.53.101): icmp_seq=3 ttl=41 time=4831 ms
    64 bytes from www.google.com (216.239.53.101): icmp_seq=4 ttl=41 time=4251 ms

    --- www.google.com ping statistics ---
    4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 4012ms
    rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 3111/5173/4622/2722.195 ms

    What happens when the satellite goes round the other side of the world though? Dropped packets? :o)
  • They could take all the recently obsolete PCs in the world, strap on solar panels and an antenna made from an old whisky tin with gaffer tape, install linux, mesh software and a wifi card, and send them into random orbits with a giant steam catapult. Problem solved. Then they could spend their budget on new spaceships, so the rest of us could go up and play.
  • all the ip packets they got were discarded by the firewall as martian.
  • Are they admining the Satelites with Webmin now?
  • Ok, I read that little attached blurb, and I'm a little curious about all the references to "Debian GNU/Linux". That article was dated April 1, 1997. Was Bruce Perens and the gang using the phrase GNU/Linux back in 1997, or is this some revisionist history?
  • First Linux on one space shuttle. Then on all of them. Who knows, one day Linux may power all space vehicles. Maybe perhaps it will even be installed on FTL starship computers someday. When that day comes, we can finally say that... Linux is ready for the Enterprise.

    * ducks *
  • Rumor has it Windows 98 was originally slated for launch but NASA officials feared too many Shuttle repair missions to reboot the derned thing.
  • Am I the only one who things that "Red Rocket, Red Rocket!" would have been a better title for this posting?

    That's all.

  • Was this post meant just for me?
    Thanks guys. You really shouldn't have.

  • So, in essence, we will be seeing an article in the future on how someone hacked into the Shuttle (Just like the Mars Lander was) and was telling the shuttle to do some (driving) donuts in space?

    Also, if the shuttle network goes down? How can they get e-mail support from the volunteer Linux Czars?

    Dolemite
  • Here is a good FAQ [nasa.gov] about IP in space is available here. It says "This is a misconception that is brought about by confusing IP, a layer 3 network protocol, with TCP, a layer 4 transport protocol."
  • I just think it's cute how the BBC called it the "Goddard Space Flight CentRE" instead of the "Goddard Space Flight CentER". Those silly Brits.

    Or perhaps we have been invaded by the British. The way things are going in the USA now, I can only hope...

  • But my code has and that makes me feel pretty damn good.

    I'd still love to go up but if this is as close as I get then I can be happy.

  • Debian is there (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here [hubblesite.org] is the proof.

    From the DWN (January 21st) [debian.org]:
    [...]
    Debian older than Humanity? Tomas Pospisek reported that the Debian Swirl can be cleary seen on one of the pictures taken by NASA's orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. For example, check the lower right hand corner of the image. Perhaps this is proof that the seeds for Debian were sowed long before the dawn of humanity.
    [...]

    fRinK
  • as i try to implement F/OSS solutions when people ask, "what is this linux thing?", all i have to say is it is used by nasa in space in mission critical operations. "did they use windows?". yeah, the astronauts get bored and need their solitaire.
  • Here's a nice addition to the "Linux Gay Conspiracy" troll if there ever was one!
  • Linux will be used as _the_ operating system to control an future satellite launched by the Naval Post Graduate school. Linux will not just be used to control just one experiment or a laptop in the shuttle, it is going to be running the entire satellite.
    Yes, the hardware is very modest (486 processor) because of the availibity of space tested hardware and radiation tolerance. However, it's rather exciting that an entire satellite will be controlled with Linux, both in orbit, and at the ground station. See this PDF paper for details of this project.
    http://www.sp.nps.navy.mil/npsat1/techni cal/SSC02- I-4_Paper.pdf

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