RTEMS on Mars?

Joel Sherrill joel.sherrill at oarcorp.com
Wed Jul 5 21:29:38 UTC 2006


Hi,

Can some shed light on the possibility that RTEMS is
on Mars?  As best I can tell from this presentation,
there is a possibility that RTEMS is/was used for the
Electra software radio which is the core of the
"Mars network infrastructure".

http://www.pmw.org/afsbpw06/talks/keynote_djbyrne.pdf

The presentation states that it arrived on Mars in
March 2006.

According to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter

"The Electra is a UHF 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high_frequency> antenna designed to 
communicate with other spacecraft as they approach, land, and operate on 
Mars. Electra will also provide Doppler information for landed vehicles 
that will enable scientists to accurately determine the their location. 
Additionally, the system will be a radio contact for surface vehicles 
and route data to NASA if the vehicle's own antenna does not have 
sufficient power to contact controllers."

Please... this certainly sounds like the kind of RTEMS
application, I like to show my kids.  Plus this would be
the RTEMS application that is farthest from home. :)

--joel



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