Serious Question - What OS do the astronauts use?

[MoebusNet]

I remember having read that NASA tends to use old hardware for their computing needs because all of the bugs have been discovered and fixed (in theory). With astronauts blogging, emailing etc, I got to wondering - do they bring their personal netbooks into orbit? What OS(s) do they use?

Ubuntu in orbit would be so cool...Mark Shuttleworth was there, after all.

[kenweill]

There was no Ubuntu at that time when Mark was there.

Hmmm. So, what was Mark's OS actually before he enter's the Linux world?

[doas777]

I'd have to assume that they use a thousand differant embedded systems, but i'd guess they'd go unix. perhaps bsd.
I would love some semi authoritative answer on this as well. I'm intrigued by the ops question.

[phrostbyte]

http://www.faho.rwth-aachen.de/~matthi/linux/LinuxInSpace.html :)

[Tipped OuT]

http://www.faho.rwth-aachen.de/~matthi/linux/LinuxInSpace.html :)

Nooo, they don't use Linux.

They just use their own specially built OS that is most likely not available to the public. Just for private use.

[hansdown]

You can build the apollo computer.

http://www.galaxiki.org/web/main/_blog/all/build-your-own-nasa-apollo-landing-computer-no-kidding.shtml

[hanzomon4]

Some rtos

[blackened]

They probably go around yelling "RTFM!" at each other all day. Friggin zealots.

[sloggerkhan]

http://www.popsci.com/node/31716
http://weblog.cenriqueortiz.com/computing/2007/08/18/on-self-modifying-code-and-the-space-shuttle-os/

Space shuttles use very old, not powerful, but massively redundant system.

[RiceMonster]

they use DOS

[lovinglinux]

Windows. They were infected last year with a W32.Gammima.AG worm :)

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1305
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/08/28/nasa-admits-computer.html

[chucky chuckaluck]

"... an operating system built by a group of 200 volunteer computer programmers who tele-collaborated over the Internet and never met each other."

there's a little gem.

[stinger30au]

I remember having read that NASA tends to use old hardware for their computing needs because all of the bugs have been discovered and fixed (in theory). With astronauts blogging, emailing etc, I got to wondering - do they bring their personal netbooks into orbit? What OS(s) do they use?

Ubuntu in orbit would be so cool...Mark Shuttleworth was there, after all.

they use a linux type enviroment on the space shuttle. apparently it has 256k of ram and it runs os9 by microware.

very similar to unix

[doas777]

"... an operating system built by a group of 200 volunteer computer programmers who tele-collaborated over the Internet and never met each other."

there's a little gem.

no doubt. has his pub key but doesn't have a date. not to mention it was compared directly to w95.

[Tipped OuT]

Nobody has bothered to quote my "Nooo, they don't use linux" line yet?

I just took a wild guess, thought for sure some one would've corrected me by now.

[Xbehave]

There was no Ubuntu at that time when Mark was there.

Hmmm. So, what was Mark's OS actually before he enter's the Linux world?
Well Mark was contributing to debian in the 1990s and made his millions from Thawte ( founded in 1995, a cert authority I think it ran on linux, id guess debian), so mark has been using linux for as long as it has been a viable OS before 1990s, your guess is as good as mine as to what os he used, i would ponder that it was something unixy but would have no idea what.



RE the OS, sloggerkhan is completely correct, linux can't run when ram gets corrupted by high solar radiation, so they run a very lame but very redundant os that does very little.

[Frak]

Last I heard, Windows.

[HappyFeet]

Hmmm. So, what was Mark's OS actually before he enter's the Linux world?

Debian.

[magmon]

Debian.

Erm.. Correct me if I'm wrong, but debian = linux, does it not?

[Dimitriid]

People keep assuming that NASA is any kind of authority on their field of expertice when many would consider them criminally negligent after some of the tragedies.

[xuCGC002]

Erm.. Correct me if I'm wrong, but debian = linux, does it not?

:-s

...Yeah?

Debian is a Linux Distro, and is also the base for Ubuntu.

[blackened]

People keep assuming that NASA is any kind of authority on their field of expertice when many would consider them criminally negligent after some of the tragedies.

I think that's more than a bit unfair. When you only do something a handful of times (or less) every year, then there are bound to be mistakes, no matter how extensive the preparation. And it's simply the nature of the game that when those mistakes (or even accidents) do happen, people die.

[Chronon]

People keep assuming that NASA is any kind of authority on their field of expertice when many would consider them criminally negligent after some of the tragedies.

Eh. They should quit the manned space flight crap and focus exclusively on satellites and robotics, IMO. The mars rovers were quite successful and we have gotten quite good information from various probes.

It seems that maintaining equipment is one of the only compelling reasons for people to go up there. Oh. . . and the novelty, of course.

[Viva]

I don't know about astronauts, but I have been to a big factory a few years ago and the control systems use some version of UNIX according to the guy who works there. I know the situations are not comparable, but the environment should be bullet proof in either situations and any small **** up will lead to a tragedy.

[earthpigg]

RE the OS, sloggerkhan is completely correct, linux can't run when ram gets corrupted by high solar radiation, so they run a very lame but very redundant os that does very little.

soo.... RAID 6, large swap partition? what form of data storage is not affected by solar radiation? punch cards....?

also:

"Debian GNU/Linux", an operating system built by a group of 200 volunteer computer programmers who tele-collaborated over the Internet and never met each other.... We united Linux with free software contributed by other volunteers to make a complete system of 800 software packages."

my, how times have changed!

[Viva]

It would be stupid to assume that they'd be using any of the vanilla OSes(except for work/office computers). At the same time, they won't be using an OS if they don't have access to the source code because again, they'd want to customize it. I've read somewhere that they use linux in some environments and that could well be true. Oh and linux is not created by 200 random individuals, it is a group effort of large IT companies like IBM, Google and Oracle and some individuals who are the best in the business.

[blackened]

...It seems that maintaining equipment is one of the only compelling reasons for people to go up there...

That and to see the pretty lights.

It's quite the moral conundrum that the head of one software company uses a portion of his personal profits to fund one of the world's biggest philanthropic foundations while the man who sold his software company for a tidy sum blows it on Antarctic adventures and launches $20+ million off into the vacuum of space. Oh, and also a Linux distribution.

Last time I checked, starving people can't eat space flight or software.

I guess that's part of having a crapload of money: you don't have to explain yourself to anyone.

[t0p]

I know they're not regular astronauts; but I was interested to read that the Mars rovers used Macs! Well, RAD6000 microprocessors (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/mer_computer_040128.html):


radiation-hardened versions of the PowerPC chips that powered Macintosh computers in the early 1990s, with 128 megabytes of random access memory (RAM) and capable of carrying out about 20 million instructions per secondBut the OS used was VxWorks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VxWorks), a real-time operating system that is also used by other NASA and ESA missions.


Windows. They were infected last year with a W32.Gammima.AG worm :)

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1305
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/08/28/nasa-admits-computer.html

That's hilarious! Apparently (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-10027754-33.html), the worm spread via USB flash drives, and was able to do so because the astronauts hadn't disabled auto-run. And they weren't running up-to-date AV software. LOL!

[Chronon]

That and to see the pretty lights.

It's quite the moral conundrum that the head of one software company uses a portion of his personal profits to fund one of the world's biggest philanthropic foundations while the man who sold his software company for a tidy sum blows it on Antarctic adventures and launches $20+ million off into the vacuum of space. Oh, and also a Linux distribution.

Last time I checked, starving people can't eat space flight or software.

I guess that's part of having a crapload of money: you don't have to explain yourself to anyone.

I was more saying that there aren't any real scientific motivations for putting people in space.

/me ignores political stuff.

[blackened]

I was more saying that there aren't any real scientific motivations for putting people in space.

Aren't as in none exist or as in aren't the reason we're putting people in space? Of course you meant the latter, and you're right, and it's weird. Seems irresponsible to spend that much money on the equivalent, with some exaggeration for effect, of fixing a toilet... in space.

And my comment wasn't necessarily political, more the pointing-out of philosophical irony.

[hoppipolla]

Vista? :D

[abhilashm86]

Vista? :D

-1, nopes just some propreity os or some embedded ones..........

[3rdalbum]

I'm pretty sure some NASA machines run Fedora 3.

Of course, Mark Shuttleworth (who was a cosmonaut, not an astronaut) ran Debian up in space.

[Eisenwinter]

People keep assuming that NASA is any kind of authority on their field of expertice when many would consider them criminally negligent after some of the tragedies.
On a small unrelated note, you remember the space shuttle Colombia, which crashed in 2003?

There was an Israeli astronaut in there. 2 weeks ago his son, who is an IAF (Israeli Air Force) pilot, crashed his plane and died.

Now for the topic.

About 3 years ago I watched a show in the discovery science channel, about mars rovers.

They said that the computers in these rovers use a 20 mhz CPU, because they "know it works, it worked in previous times".

[joebodo]

Last time I checked, starving people can't eat space flight or software.

I guess that's part of having a crapload of money: you don't have to explain yourself to anyone.

A free operating system helps to lower the cost of education. With a properly educated society, people can feed themselves. Teach a man to fish...

[23meg]

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7570
http://jaboutboul.blogspot.com/2008/02/fedora-on-final-frontier.html
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/199499/interview_driver_behind_nasa_mars_rovers?pp=1

[Viva]

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7570
http://jaboutboul.blogspot.com/2008/02/fedora-on-final-frontier.html
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/199499/interview_driver_behind_nasa_mars_rovers?pp=1

awesome:guitar:

[3rdalbum]

They said that the computers in these rovers use a 20 mhz CPU, because they "know it works, it worked in previous times".

That's got to be incorrect. They know that Core 2 Duos work, people use them every day without problems (at least, without CPU problems).

The real issue has got to be heat. A 20 mhz CPU will put out practically nothing in the way of heat, and use very little power, which is ideal in an airless atmosphere on a machine that runs off batteries and solar power.

[wojox]

Vista? :D

They use to use windows. Until the infamous

"Houston we have a problem."

[Странник]

I think it was some hard to remember UNIX os

[NCLI]

They use XP on the ISS. You can see it in the tour on youtube.

[t0p]

They use to use windows. Until the infamous

"Houston we have a problem."

Is this a serious comment? It's incorrect, anyway. The infamous announcement "Houston we have a problem" was uttered during the Apollo 13 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13) mission in 1970. And there wasn't any Windows in 1970.

Anyway, you can't use Windows in outer space. Open a window and you'd get sucked out into the void! :p

[tubezninja]

The bottom line is, NASA uses a LOT of different OSes, some custom-built for the task, others "off-the-shelf" and it all depends on what that system needs to be doing and what the people on the project are familiar with. The Mars Rover teams used linux (http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid39_gci1157924,00.html) to control their craft. The laptops on the shuttle and ISS where astronauts check their e-mail and such have been shown using windows (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,412242,00.html). Some NASA departments use Solaris (http://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/tipsod/installation/SolarisInstall.html). And still other NASA projects use OS X (http://developer.apple.com/business/macmarket/riacsnasa.html).

In other words, NASA is a large agency with lots of people from various computing backgrounds, and as a whole they're pretty much platform-agnostic.

[doas777]

Eh. They should quit the manned space flight crap and focus exclusively on satellites and robotics, IMO. The mars rovers were quite successful and we have gotten quite good information from various probes.

It seems that maintaining equipment is one of the only compelling reasons for people to go up there. Oh. . . and the novelty, of course.

you have come to the exact opposite conclusion that i have. all the telescopes and landers and probes don't amount to a hill of beans if it doesn't help get humans off this rock, and to be honest, learning to survive there is long term priority number 1. there will be casualities, just as there were in the oceanic exploration period in west europe, or any other period of migration and exploration.

frankly I care not which nebula look like butterflies. if it doesn't help me get into space, it isn;t part of the space program. it's just unapplible research.

[koshatnik]

I remember watching an american astronaut talking about flying with the russians, and he was showing some tv crew around a russian space ship, and the guy interviewing him was laughing at the technology. The american guy turned around and said, "but it works. And that's all that matters in space. When I flick a button, I want it to work. I don't want error messages." He then went onto explain that, despite what hollywood scifi movies depict, space travel is relatively low tech and crude. It takes more computing power to keep a jet airliner in the air than a rocket.

Its the K.I.S.S principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Low power, low tech, mechanical engineering is less likely to go wrong. Both NASA and the Russians know this.

[Simian Man]

Such a huge organization will use dozens of OSs. At least some people at Nasa are using Fedora (http://jaboutboul.blogspot.com/2008/02/fedora-on-final-frontier.html).

[Whiffle]

That's got to be incorrect. They know that Core 2 Duos work, people use them every day without problems (at least, without CPU problems).

The real issue has got to be heat. A 20 mhz CPU will put out practically nothing in the way of heat, and use very little power, which is ideal in an airless atmosphere on a machine that runs off batteries and solar power.

Nope, not heat. They actually have heaters to keep the batteries warm, among other things. Space is coooold.

The real reason they use old hardware is radiation hardening, because there is plenty of radiation in space to screw with electronics. And, radiation hardened hardware is always quite a bit behind the newest stuff here on earth.



The Spirit rover has a radiation-hardened R6000 CPU from Lockheed-Martin Federal Systems at the heart of the system. The processor accesses 120 Mbytes of RAM and 256 Mbytes of flash. Mounted in a 6U VME chassis, the processor board also has access to custom cards that interface to systems on the rover.

The operating system is Wind River Systems' Vx-Works version 5.3.1, used with its flash file system extension. In operation, the real-time OS and all other executable code are RAM-resident.

The flash memory stores executable images that are loaded into RAM at system boot. Separately, about 230 Mbytes are used to implement a flash file system that stores "data products," or data files that are created by the rover's subsystems and held for transmission to Earth.



As far as manned space flight goes, I'm all for it. I used to think that robots are fine for every task, but they really aren't. Humans are much more intelligent and are able to solve problems on the fly. Robots, not so much. It takes a good 20 minutes to send a command from here to Mars, so real time control is not an option.

A great example of this is the Apollo program. Humans made that work. We learned *tons* about the moon and its history from that program, by finding rocks up there and bringing them back. You can't do that with a robot, they don't have the capability to look at the local geology, look at the rocks, look at the landscape and figure out which rocks are the important ones to bring back to get us the most information, and which ones aren't.

And about astronauts getting killed...Going to space is DANGEROUS. Strapping yourself to a few million pounds of high explosives and then blasting out of the atmosphere? Yeah, dangerous. Not only that, the people who go up know the risks, and accept that risk, or they wouldn't do it. I consider NASA's record to be pretty decent, considering the circumstances (being a government agency, blasting people into space...etc....). On the other hand, the higher ups really need to listen to their engineers more, if they had, Challenger and Columbia wouldn't have happened.

[ZarathustraDK]

They probably have a Commodore 64-tape somewhere marked "Shuttle-ignition-sequence".

[moster]

They use to use windows. Until the infamous

"Houston we have a problem."

Full, uncesored sentence goes like this:
Houston we have a problem, we forgot to carry ControlAltDeleter.

http://pulse2.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ctrl-alt-del.jpg

[MoebusNet]

Eh. They should quit the manned space flight crap and focus exclusively on satellites and robotics, IMO. The mars rovers were quite successful and we have gotten quite good information from various probes.

It seems that maintaining equipment is one of the only compelling reasons for people to go up there. Oh. . . and the novelty, of course.

I seem to remember that Christopher Columbus died bankrupt and unappreciated during his lifetime. Human exploration of the unknown has always yielded benefits that were not understood within a single lifetime. The extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago should teach us that unless the human race propagates beyond a single planet, we stand a good chance of becoming extinct as a species.

Call me selfish, but that would not be my preferred outcome.

[dab1414]

I work over here at NASA in California, supporting the space shuttle program. I can tell you NASA uses different OS's for different thins. Here is a link from NASA that might explain at least whats going on with the shuttle shuttle and its OS's.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090001334_2008047125.pdf

[cariboo]

And with that, this 1 year old + thread can be closed.

[3Miro]

The original Apollo mission was before Dos, Mac or even Unix.

Right now, NASA would use either very narrowly specialized software or Unix of some sort, depending on the situation.

[Verbeck]

And with that, this 1 year old + thread can be closed.
still open?

[Joeb454]

And with that, this 1 year old + thread can be closed.


still open?

As cariboo said - thread closed :)