<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi everyone,<div>While I am stuck in a Blizzard near Washington DC, some of my colleagues in Florida are preparing to launch the SDO spacecraft. The SDO satellite has a main RAD750 Computer running vxWorks, but it also has 5 Rad-Hard Coldfire CPUs running RTEMS. The coldfire/RTEMS computers run many of the I/O functions and one of the instruments. </div><div><br></div><div>A great overview is here:</div><div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/02/09/science/space/09solar_graphic.html">http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/02/09/science/space/09solar_graphic.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>And more info:</div><div><br></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><img width="334" height="549" align="left" hspace="12" alt="sdo_atlas_lambert2.jpg" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image002.jpg@01CAA9C5.F5D81130"><b><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Launch is ‘Go’ for SDO!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><b><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is set to lift off from launch complex 41 at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., aboard an Atlas V rocket on Wednesday, February 10, at 10:26 a.m. EST. The Heliophysics Science Division at Goddard anticipates this first of its kind eye on the sun will reveal the sun’s inner workings in unprecedented detail.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">SDO will provide better quality, more comprehensive science data faster than any NASA spacecraft currently studying the sun and its processes. SDO will unlock the secrets of how our nearest star sustains life on Earth, affects the planets of our solar system and beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">The sun’s dynamic processes affect everyone and everything on Earth. SDO will explore activity on the sun that can disable satellites, cause power grid failures, and disrupt GPS communications. SDO also will provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in Earth’s atmospheric chemistry and climate.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">SDO is the crown jewel in a fleet of NASA missions to study our sun. The mission is the cornerstone of a NASA science program called Living With a Star. This program will provide new understanding and information concerning the sun and solar system that directly affect Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Watch this exciting event as it happens. Live broadcast coverage of the SDO launch will be carried live on NASA TV beginning on Wednesday, February 10, at 7:15 a.m. EST and will conclude after spacecraft separation, which occurs one hour and 48 minutes after launch.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">Follow the SDO launch on Twitter. Tweet-up events will take place on February 9 and 10 at the Kennedy Space Center with approximately 50 classrooms around the world, and 30 other independent sites. There will also be a virtual tweet-up in Second Life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><b><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">To follow SDO on Twitter, visit: <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_SDO" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">http://twitter.com/NASA_SDO</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">For more information about the SDO tweet-up, visit: <a href="http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/sdoisgo/" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/sdoisgo/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">For more information about SDO, visit: <a href="http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 694.5pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span class="detailimagedesc"><span style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Raavi; "><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div></div></body></html>