Is Unix/Linux used in space exploration? Post: 302538601

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The Lounge What is on Your Mind? Is Unix/Linux used in space exploration? Post 302538601 by Perderabo on Wednesday 13th of July 2011 01:07:14 PM

07-13-2011

Administrator Emeritus

This is how I make my living these days. We are using Solaris but are migrating to Linux as fast as we can. We build launch vehicles and satellites. Sometimes we launch our own satellites. Sometimes we launch someone else's satellite in our launch vehicle. Sometimes our satellite rides up in someone else's launch vehicle.

For launch vehicles we use Solaris/Linux for Launch Support Equipment. LSE talks to the vehicle while it is on the ground. If a spacecraft goes up on our launch vehicles, we control the vehicle entirely with Solaris/Linux. If we built the spacecraft, we take over as soon as it is in orbit and perform the in-orbit testing. Often we drive until the craft is in the final orbit. Usually we turn the craft over to the customer. In a very few cases we drive forever. Our rooms like the mission control centers you see at NASA are 100% Linux/Unix. We talk to ground antennas via TCP/IP. We own one antenna and rent time on others. Our antenna is not Unix or Linux... don't know about the others. No Linux or Unix on board any of our spacecraft.

Most of what we do are GEO communication satellites. We do launch a few LEO science satellites for NASA and these could be called space exploration. We have one craft beyond Mars on its way to the asteroid belt. That certainly counts.

We use a mixture of Linux Solaris and Windows in the design of spacecraft. Our compute cluster for fluid dynamics computation is 100% Linux.

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

seesat5

seesat5(1)						      General Commands Manual							seesat5(1)

NAME

       seesat5 - provides satellite visibility information.

SYNOPSIS

       seesat5 [ report ] [ go <Label> ] | [ <command> ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       This  program uses the sgp4 algorithm provided by NORAD to produce position information on a satellite. Seesat5 can produce tracking infor-
       mation for one satellite over a period of several days, or for a collection of satellites over that period. By providing filter	conditions
       seesat5 prints out only those satellites you might have a chance to see rather than all the satellites that pass above the horizon.

       Seesat5	is  typically  run  by placing control commands into an init file called SEESAT5.INI. See seesat5 (7) for the description of these
       commands.  If there is no init file Seesat5 will present the operator with a '>' prompt where commands can  be  entered.  From  the  prompt
       seesat5 will begin analysis when sufficient parameters have been entered to begin the run.

       Seesat5	uses  selection  conditions to filter the data so that only high and bright satellites are printed. Note that the selection condi-
       tions are used to select whether or not the current passes data will be printed. If it is printed, then the complete pass data is  printed.
       ie. all data from when the satellite comes over the horizon until it goes below.

       For lines that satisfied ALL the selection conditions, a "+" sign is printed as the first character.

   Options
       report This  option  will disable printing of report records in the output of the run. These include all command lines found in SEESAT5.INI
	      or entered from the command line or the prompt.

       go     Followed by a label, this option causes branching within the SEESAT5.INI to begin execution at the line following  label.  Branching
	      occurs when the cmdline command is executed in the SEESAT5.INI file.

       command
	      Most of the commands that can be found in SEESAT5.INI can be entered on the command line. If you desire the SEESAT5.INI file to exe-
	      cute after the command line be sure to make the last command RET.

FILES

       SEESAT5.INI
	      The control file for seesat5

       *.tle  Two line element files used by seesat5.

SEE ALSO

       seesat5(7), SEESAT5.INI(5), tle(5), cr(1)

BUGS

       Seesat5 is not always able to check data integrity. Since computation and output is driven by the data in  the  two  line  element,  subtle
       errors  in  a  tle can cause floating point exceptions. In addition there are several commands that do not work well together, like SHOWTLE
       and RUNTIME. Please report any problems with seesat5 to Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>.

Debian Linux							    28 March 96 							seesat5(1)