what kind of computer inside space capsule?

Which capsule?

You would do better to ask on sci.space.history

Most spacecraft computers have been custom units that don't run any of the above. But recent shuttle flights have used standard laptops running the latest redmond virus for control of onboard experiments, email, etc.

And right around the time DEC laid me off, a shuttle flight carried a real live mil-spec VAX running VMS in the payload bay. It made history as the first time a software fix was ever compiled and rerun in space!

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

That you knew about.

Brett

I thought similar things were done on space probes all the time? (i.e., reprogramming Galileo to use the low-gain antenna instead of the high-gain one, etc.).

David Erbas-White

This was the Space VAX which was operating a robot inside a GAS can. My old employer, the robotics lab at NASA GSFC was the sponsor of this. I know the guys who did the code change (I think they edited it remotely). This VAX also holds the record for the fastest login. After the flight it sat on a table in the lab for a while. After the demise of the Flight Telerobotic Servicer the lab was shut down and the equipment scattered to the four winds.

for doing what? for command and control of the capsule? I wouldn't use any of that heavyweight software. yes linux is heavyweight.

go do a google on "embedded systems" and come back in a few weeks.

One operating system I know of was (actually, is, since it's on 14 spacecraft and run this once per 1.024 seconds continuously since 1982):

upon cycle clock leading edge go to location 50(hex) run when noop encountered, halt powerdown

Pretty simple.

Brett

I did a paper on computing systems in spaceflight for a History of the Space Age class. Here's a basic rundown:

Mercury: No computers on board, ground systems used IBM 709 & 7090 computers developed for the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. An additional system was added to solve communication problems with geographically distant ground stations, a 7281 I Data Communications Channel.

Ranger, Surveyor and Early Mariner Unmanned Probes used sequencers.

Apollo Age Gemini: The Gemini Digital Computer. IBM received the contract for the GDC on April 19, 1962. It weighed approximately 59 pounds, performed more than 7,000 calculations per second, and required 1.35 cubic feet of space. It used a magnetic core memory, which was originally deisgned for the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE). The GDC failed at re-entry during the flight of James McDivitt and Ed White. They had to manually de-orbit and landed 80 miles off course.

Apollo: The Apollo guidance and navigation computer was designed by MIT.

Skylab: NASA went with IBM again and the system was designed around an off-the-shelf version of the IBM 4Pi processor, a direct predecessor to the System /360. This is the first time I saw when a system that implemented microcode was flown in space.

Voyager, Galilio: Used a distributed computing system designed by JPL.

Space Transportation System (Shuttle): Initial design for the main computer was a repackaged version of the F-15 fighter jet's IBM's AP-1, called the IBM AP-101, based on the IBM

The first use of Open Source in space was when Debian GNU/Linux flew on the shuttle in 1997 controlling a hydroponics experiment. This was most likely on an IBM laptop, but I didn't find any concerte references to this.

I don't know who the contractor was for the main computer aboard the ISS, but the individual astronauts use IBM laptops, running MS software, for everyday ops.

So just as home computers can be traced back to military computers, so can spacecraft computers, perhaps more directly.

Here ends the history lesson.

Mike Gerszewski Graduate Assistant University of North Dakota Space Studies

This is true. Awhile back, I was given a DVD from an employee of the Glenn Research Center. Most of what it contains deals with microgravity experiments utilizing the various drop towers they have there. One chunk of the included "bonus feature" was a guided tour of the ISS narrated by one of the crew. I swear, about every two feet there was an IBM notebook happily running WinNT. Everything appeared to be connected via 10BaseT, utilizing what appeared to be some 3Com series cards (3C509's methinks, I recognized the dongle). Also, the narrator pointed out two file servers which looked to be standard IBM PC's most definitely running NT Server.

Another feature was called "Astrosmiles" which was basically a series of clips of various shuttle crews acting like a bunch of kids.

Very, very funny! Storey Musgrave is an absolute hoot in several of the clips!

tah

That's what NASA claimed.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

But that programming and compiling was done down hear on earth, and the binary was beamed to the spacecraft. This was a software change made ON ORBIT, and recompiled ON ORBIT.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

I thought it was on a pallet in the payload bay, rather than a can.

By fastest login, I assume you refer to the MPH the computer was doing at login time :-)

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

The shuttle has 5 computers, in a voting scheme. 4 are IBM as you mention. The fifth is IIRC Singer. So even in the event of a HAL style meltdown that takes out the IBM systems, they still have one left to fly the bird.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Beore one of his flights, I sent jay Apt a box of rubber "shuttle noses", and told him I wanted a pciture of the crew wearing them. Never got the picture, but I wonder what he did with the noses.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

And nobody has the right stuff to fly a Shuttle reentry manualy (without gyros).

Alan

AS far as I know the robot on the pallet was the flight telerobitic servicer which, never flew because they cancelled it after spending 95% of its $1G budget. The robot in the GAS can was a 3 axis job doing a pick and place job for an anealing experiment. The software was written in Ada. The login speed was the velocity of the computer.