home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Form U148-0794
- ALCATEL.TXT
-
- Ada Information Clearinghouse, 1-800/AdaIC-11, 703/685-1477
-
- Special features introduced with future space applications and qualifications
- in mind required that the Receiver software be programmed in Ada for reliable
- and safe software development.
-
- ADA USED TO DEVELOP A GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM
- FOR FUTURE SPACECRAFT
-
- THE PROJECT
- The European Space Agency (ESA) has been developing with ALCATEL-SEL (D) a GPS
- Receiver for Space applications. It will be used on-board the future ESA's
- low Earth Orbit Spacecraft, namely HERMES, the manned European space shuttle
- and the COLOMBUS Free-Flier Laboratory. The receiver is a 5-channel C/A code
- and carrier tracking, parallel receiver. A specially qualified version of this
- unit flied on the German ASTROPAS platform, on-board the shuttle STS-59
- mission (1993).
-
- As a preparation for the use of GPS on future spacecraft, ESA contacted
- ALCATEL-SEL for the manufacturing of a GPS receiver Elegant breadboard Unit
- following functional, performance and interface requirements applicable to the
- projects HERMES and COLUMBUS. This company was selected due to the experience
- that they already had on GPS civil receivers.
-
- THE ADA SYSTEM
- The aim of this contract was to procure an equipment that would be used for
- laboratory testing of the GPS Absolute (stand-alone) navigation accuracy
- performance when applied to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) vehicles with re-entry
- capabilities. In addition, the equipment had to be designed for high accuracy
- GPS applications; Relative Navigation in support of In-orbit Proximity
- Operations and Rendez-Vous, and Automatic Landing. Finally, the receiver had
- to be conceived with its future space application and qualification in mind,
- and a number of special features were introduced for this purpose. One of
- these features required that the Receiver software be programmed in Ada for
- reliable and safe software development. This is an ESA software general
- requirement.
-
- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE APPLICATION
- The development has been done with the Alsys Ada development environment,
- AdaWorld for Sun3 to Motorola 80385. Alsys also provided Alcatel-Sel with the
- Alsys Real Time Kernel (ARTK), which supports Ada features and provides
- real-time extension to the language for embedded systems. The need of such
- extensions has been increasingly bigger within the entire Ada community. This
- is why most of the ARTK's real-time capacities are now going to be offered to
- all Ada programmers by the new standard, Ada 9X.
-
-
-
- For further information, please contact:
-
- Ann Trib
- Alsys GMBH & Co.KG
- Kleinoberfeld 7
- D-76135 Karlsruhe
- Germany
- Tel: + 49 721 985 530
- Fax: + 49 49 721 985 5398
-
- Produced in cooperation with Ada Information Clearinghouse, Ada Software
- Alliance, and ACM SIGAda. Additional are available from the Ada Information
- Clearinghouse, at the address below.
-
- ***********************
-
- Copyright 1994. IIT Research Institute. All rights assigned to the U.S.
- Government (Ada Joint Program Office). Permission to reprint this flyer, in
- whole or in part, is granted provided the AdaIC is acknowledged as the source.
- If this flyer is reprinted as a part of a published document, please send the
- AdaIC a courtesy copy of the publication.
-
- Ada Information Clearinghouse (AdaIC)
- P.O. Box 46593
- Washington, DC 20050-6593
- 703/685-1477, 800/AdaIC-11, FAX 703/685-7019
- adainfo@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu; CompuServe 70312,3303
-
- The AdaIC is sponsored by the Ada Joint Program Office and operated by IIT
- Research Institute.
-
- The views, opinions, and findings contained in this report are those of the
- author(s) and should not be construed as an official Agency position, policy,
- or decision, unless so designated by other official documentation.
-