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Advanced Technology Airborne Computer
The Advanced Technology Airborne Computer (ATAC) was a product of Itek (a division of Litton Industries), used on US naval aircraft, and the NASA Galileo (spacecraft). The ATAC was built using AMD 2901 4-bit processors and had a basic cycle time of 250 ns. It could be programmed in HAL/S, and could be microprogrammed to add new instructions. The Galileo project added four instructions. Use on US Naval aircraft Use by Galileo project ''Galileo'' was an American robotic space program that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other Solar System bodies. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, the ''Galileo'' spacecraft consisted of an or ... The Galileo Attitude and Articulation Control System (AACSE) was controlled by two Itek Advanced Technology Airborne Computers (ATAC), built using radiation-hardened 2901s. The project wrote their own GRACOS (Galileo realtime Attitude Control Operating System). The Galileo project had radiation- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Itek
Itek Corporation was a United States defense contractor that initially specialized in camera systems for spy satellites and various other reconnaissance systems. In the early 1960s they built a conglomerate in a fashion similar to LTV or Litton, during which time they developed the first CAD system and explored optical disc technology. These efforts were unsuccessful, and the company shed divisions to various companies, returning to its roots in the reconnaissance market. The remaining portions were eventually purchased by Litton in 1983, and then Hughes, Raytheon, and Goodrich Corporation. History Beginnings Richard Leghorn was a former United States Air Force (USAF) aerial reconnaissance expert who had first proposed flying reconnaissance missions over enemy territory in peacetime.Lewis, 2002 Leghorn left the Air Force to become head of Eastman Kodak's European division,Time, 1963 and started writing about the "Open Skies" proposal, which he strongly supported. Open Skies p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Litton Industries
Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States named after inventor Charles Litton Sr. During the 1960s, the company began acquiring many unrelated firms and became one of the largest conglomerates in the United States. At its peak, in addition to many defense-related companies, it also owned both Royal Typewriters and Adler, Moffat major appliances, Stouffer's frozen foods, and various office equipment and furniture companies. Like many conglomerates, the company suffered significant declines in the 1970s, selling off many of its unrelated brands and had largely returned to its defense roots by the 1980s. The company continued to shrink after the ending of the Cold War and by the late 1990s was a corporate takeover target. The company was purchased by Northrop Grumman in 2001. History Litton Industries was originally established as an electronics company building navigation, communications and electronic warfare equipment. They diversified and becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galileo (spacecraft)
''Galileo'' was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989, by , during STS-34. ''Galileo'' arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory built the ''Galileo'' spacecraft and managed the ''Galileo'' program for NASA. West Germany Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm supplied the propulsion module. NASA's Ames Research Center managed the atmospheric probe, which was built by Hughes Aircraft Company. At launch, the orbiter and probe together had a mass of and stood tall. Spacecraft are normally stabilized either by spinning around a fixed axis or by maintaining a fixed orientation with reference to the Sun and a star. '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AM2901
Am2900 is a family of integrated circuits (ICs) created in 1975 by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). They were constructed with bipolar devices, in a bit-slice topology, and were designed to be used as modular components each representing a different aspect of a computer control unit (CCU). By using the bit slicing technique, the Am2900 family was able to implement a CCU with data, addresses, and instructions to be any multiple of 4 bits by multiplying the number of ICs. One major problem with this modular technique was that it required a larger number of ICs to implement what could be done on a single CPU IC. The Am2901 chip was the arithmetic logic unit (ALU), and the "core" of the series. It could count using 4 bits and implement binary operations as well as various bit-shifting operations. The 2901 and some other chips in the family were second sourced by an unusually large number of other manufacturers, starting with Motorola and then Raytheon both in 1975 and also Cypre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HAL/S
HAL/S (''High-order Assembly Language/Shuttle'') is a real-time aerospace programming language compiler and cross-compiler for avionics applications used by NASA and associated agencies ( JPL, etc.). It has been used in many U.S. space projects since 1973 and its most significant use was in the Space Shuttle program (approximately 85% of the Shuttle software was coded in HAL/S). It was designed by Intermetrics in 1972 for NASA and delivered in 1973. HAL/S is written in XPL, a dialect of PL/I. Although HAL/S is designed primarily for programming on-board computers, it is general enough to meet nearly all the needs in the production, verification, and support of aerospace and other real-time applications. According to documentation from 2005, it was being maintained by the HAL/S project of United Space Alliance. Goals and principles The three key principles in designing the language were reliability, efficiency, and machine-independence. The language is designed to allow aerospace- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microprogramming
In processor design, microcode (μcode) is a technique that interposes a layer of computer organization between the central processing unit (CPU) hardware and the programmer-visible instruction set architecture of a computer. Microcode is a layer of hardware-level instructions that implement higher-level machine code instructions or internal finite-state machine sequencing in many digital processing elements. Microcode is used in general-purpose central processing units, although in current desktop CPUs, it is only a fallback path for cases that the faster hardwired control unit cannot handle. Microcode typically resides in special high-speed memory and translates machine instructions, state machine data, or other input into sequences of detailed circuit-level operations. It separates the machine instructions from the underlying electronics so that instructions can be designed and altered more freely. It also facilitates the building of complex multi-step instructions, while redu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galileo Project
''Galileo'' was an American robotic space program that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other Solar System bodies. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, the ''Galileo'' spacecraft consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989 by on the STS-34 mission, and arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. It launched the first probe into Jupiter, directly measuring its atmosphere. Despite suffering major antenna problems, ''Galileo'' achieved the first asteroid flyby, of 951 Gaspra, and discovered the first asteroid moon, Dactyl, around 243 Ida. In 1994, ''Galileo'' observed Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9's collision with Jupiter. Jupiter's atmospheric composition and ammonia clouds were recorded. Io's volcanism and plasma interactions with Jupiter's atmosphere were also recorded. The data ''G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aircraft Research Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships (including blimps), gliders, paramotors, and hot air balloons. The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called ''aviation''. The science of aviation, including designing and building aircraft, is called ''aeronautics.'' Crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as lift type, aircraft propulsion, usage and others. History Flying model craft and stories of manned flight go back many centuries; however, the first manned ascent — and safe descent — in modern times took place by larger hot-air ball ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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