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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up!
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To: Allen Benn who wrote ()3/2/1997 1:58:00 PM
From: Snowshoe   of 10309
 
Mars Pathfinder Mission

Wind River's 4th-quarter financial statement last week contained the following mention of the Mars Pathfinder Mission:

"During the quarter, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) launched the Pathfinder, making Wind River's VxWorks(R) the first commercial operating system to travel to Mars. VxWorks, in this mission-critical application, controls the Pathfinder's trajectory during the cruise phase. It will also control the descent to Mars and run the ground operations once the Rover has landed on the planet's surface -- scheduled for July 4 of this year. The selection of Wind River underscores the confidence that JPL has in the company's technology."

Here is a link that provides a good summary of the mission, including some nice graphics: www-k12.atmos.washington.edu

This excerpt from the above link mentions VxWorks:

"All thermally sensitive electronics are contained in an insulated enclosure on the center panel. Specific hardware components inside this enclosure include a high performance central computer that controls the spacecraft during cruise, entry, descent, landing and surface operations (a 32 bit, radiation-hardened work station-RAD 6000 with roughly a gigabit of memory, programmable in C with a VxWorks operating system), a Cassini heritage transponder, a solid state power amplifier for telecommunications, and a high capacity rechargeable battery (40 amp-hr)."

Looks like Wind River fans will have an extra reason to celebrate this year on July 4th!

-Greg
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