Executives from Wind River (Hall 5B, B9) are celebrating the 10 June launch of the first of two Mars Exploration Rovers, NASA's Spirit spacecraft, powered by the Alameda, California company's mission-critical operating systems.
Following the success of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder Mission, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) once again selected Wind River's real-time operating system (RTOS), VxWorks and Tornado integrated development environment (IDE) to create the "brains" of the new twin robot geologists.
Wind River technology will enable the machines to perform complex, mission-critical tasks, including trajectory, descent and ground operations control, data collection and Mars to Earth communication relay, among other functions.
Pathfinder
Wind River was the first commercial operating system to go to Mars, when it worked with NASA JPL on the successful Pathfinder mission.
With greater mobility than the 1997 Mars Pathfinder, the self-sufficient robots will now be able to trek about 40m (130ft) across the surface each day, compared with the few metres per day that the Pathfinder Sojourner could travel.
Spirit will arrive at Mars on 4 January 2004. The rover will examine its landing area in the Gusev Crater for geological evidence about the history of water on Mars.
The first launch time for Opportunity, the second rover, is 25 June.
Jerry Fiddler, chairman and co-founder of Wind River says: "Wind River is extremely proud of its role as a technology supplier for a prestigious organisation such as NASA JPL.
Source: Flight Daily News