Ares I gets OPEN SOURCE Boeing avionics

[docm]

PM article....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>NASA Will Tinker With Open-Source Rocket for Return to Moon</b><br /><br /><font color="yellow">The "brains" of the Ares I rocket that will send four astronauts back to the moon sometime in the next 12 years will be built by Boeing, NASA announced today—<b>but the specifications will be open-source and non-proprietary</b>, so that other companies can bid on future contracts. The avionics unit will provide guidance, navigation and control for the launch rocket, which will carry the Orion crew vehicle into Earth orbit.</font><br /><br />“The combined Ares I and Orion will replace the Space Shuttle and become the workhorse that takes astronauts into space for journeys to the Space Station, the Moon and Mars,†said Doug Cooke, a official with NASA’s Exploration Systems division. The Shuttle is currently slated for retirement in 2010.<br /><br />The $800 million avionics deal is the last one in a series of four Ares I contracts issued in the past five months, totaling $5 billion. Pratt & Whitney is building the engine for $1.2 billion, Alliant Techsystems is building the first-stage solid rocket booster for $1.8 billion, and Boeing had earlier won the $1.125 billion upper-stage contract.<br /><br />NASA’s Constellation program, which aims to return humans to the moon by 2020, will use the Ares I rocket to launch Orion into orbit. A larger Ares V rocket, which will be developed based on the Ares I design beginning early in the next decade, will rendezvous with Orion in orbit and provide the extra units needed to escape Earth’s orbit. But that doesn’t mean that Boeing can count on billions of dollars of contracts for the Ares V, noted Ares project manager Steve Cook. The specifications for the Ares I design are “open-source and non-proprietary,†he said, ensuring that future</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Before any GPL fans get too excited, it's the specs that will be open -- not the designs. Computers designed to an open spec can be almost complete proprietary -- in such a case, the device acts as a "black box". This is not the first contract that I've heard about going in this direction. The DoD has been flirting with the idea too, in hopes of saving it some money by encouraging more level competition. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[docm]

Better than nothing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>