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RAD6000
The RAD6000 radiation-hardened single-board computer, based on the IBM RISC Single Chip CPU, was manufactured by IBM Federal Systems. IBM Federal Systems was sold to Loral, and by way of acquisition, ended up with Lockheed Martin and is currently a part of BAE Systems Electronic Systems. RAD6000 is mainly known as the onboard computer of numerous NASA spacecraft. History The radiation-hardening of the original RSC 1.1 million-transistor processor to make the RAD6000's CPU was done by IBM Federal Systems Division working with the Air Force Research Laboratory. , there are 200 RAD6000 processors in space on a variety of NASA, United States Department of Defense and commercial spacecraft, including: * Mars Exploration Rovers ( ''Spirit'' and ''Opportunity'') * Deep Space 1 probe * Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter * Mars Odyssey orbiter * Spitzer Infrared Telescope Facility * MESSENGER probe to Mercury * STEREO Spacecraft * IMAGE/Explorer 78 MIDEX spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAD750
The RAD750 is a radiation-hardened single-board computer manufactured by BAE Systems Electronics, Intelligence & Support. The successor of the RAD6000, the RAD750 is for use in high-radiation environments experienced on board satellites and spacecraft. The RAD750 was released in 2001, with the first units launched into space in 2005. Technology The CPU has 10.4 million transistors, an order of magnitude more than the RAD6000 (which had 1.1 million). It is manufactured using either 250 or 150 nm photolithography and has a die area of 130 mm2. It has a core clock of 110 to 200 MHz and can process at 266 MIPS or more. The CPU can include an extended L2 cache to improve performance. The CPU can withstand an absorbed radiation dose of 2,000 to 10,000 grays (200,000 to 1,000,000 rads), temperatures between −55 ° C and 125 °C, and requires 5 watts of power. The standard RAD750 single-board system (CPU and motherboard) can withstand 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spirit (rover)
''Spirit'', also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2, is a Mars robotic rover, active from 2004 to 2010. ''Spirit'' was operational on Mars for sols or 3.3 Martian years ( days; '). It was one of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Spirit landed successfully within the impact crater Gusev on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, ''Opportunity'' (MER-B), which landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The rover got stuck in a "sand trap" in late 2009 at an angle that hampered recharging of its batteries; its last communication with Earth was on March 22, 2010. The rover completed its planned 90- sol mission (slightly less than 92.5 Earth days). Aided by cleaning events that resulted in more energy from its solar panels, ''Spirit'' went on to function effectively over twenty times longe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opportunity (rover)
''Opportunity'', also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018. ''Opportunity'' was operational on Mars for sols (). Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin, '' Spirit'' (MER-A), touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90-sol duration of activity (slightly less than 92.5 Earth days), ''Spirit'' functioned until it got stuck in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, while ''Opportunity'' was able to stay operational for sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. This careful operation allowed ''Opportunity'' to operate for 57 times its designed lifespan, exceeding the initial plan by (in Earth time). By June 10, 2018, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
POWER1
The POWER1 is a multi-chip CPU developed and fabricated by IBM that implemented the POWER instruction set architecture (ISA). It was originally known as the RISC System/6000 CPU or, when in an abbreviated form, the RS/6000 CPU, before introduction of successors required the original name to be replaced with one that used the same naming scheme (POWER''n'') as its successors in order to differentiate it from the newer designs. History The POWER1 was introduced in 1990, with the introduction of the IBM RS/6000 POWERserver servers and POWERstation workstations, which featured the POWER1 clocked at 20, 25 or 30 MHz. The POWER1 received two upgrades, one in 1991, with the introduction of the POWER1+ and in 1992, with the introduction of POWER1++. These upgraded versions were clocked higher than the original POWER1, made possible by improved semiconductor processes. The POWER1+ was clocked slightly higher than the original POWER1, at frequencies of 25, 33 and 41 MHz, whil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MESSENGER
''MESSENGER'' was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is a backronym for "Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging", and a reference to the messenger god Mercury from Roman mythology. ''MESSENGER'' was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004. Its path involved a complex series of flybys – the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself three times, allowing it to decelerate relative to Mercury using minimal fuel. During its first flyby of Mercury in January 2008, ''MESSENGER'' became the second mission, after Mariner 10 in 1975, to reach Mercury. ''MESSENGER'' entered orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011, becoming the first spacecraft to do so. It successfully completed its primary mission in 2012. Following two mission extensions, the spacecraft used the last of its maneuvering propellant to deor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiation Hardening
Radiation hardening is the process of making electronic components and circuits resistant to damage or malfunction caused by high levels of ionizing radiation ( particle radiation and high-energy electromagnetic radiation), especially for environments in outer space (especially beyond the low Earth orbit), around nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, or during nuclear accidents or nuclear warfare. Most semiconductor electronic components are susceptible to radiation damage, and radiation-hardened (rad-hard) components are based on their non-hardened equivalents, with some design and manufacturing variations that reduce the susceptibility to radiation damage. Due to the extensive development and testing required to produce a radiation-tolerant design of a microelectronic chip, the technology of radiation-hardened chips tends to lag behind the most recent developments. Radiation-hardened products are typically tested to one or more resultant-effects tests, including total ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiation Hardening
Radiation hardening is the process of making electronic components and circuits resistant to damage or malfunction caused by high levels of ionizing radiation ( particle radiation and high-energy electromagnetic radiation), especially for environments in outer space (especially beyond the low Earth orbit), around nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, or during nuclear accidents or nuclear warfare. Most semiconductor electronic components are susceptible to radiation damage, and radiation-hardened (rad-hard) components are based on their non-hardened equivalents, with some design and manufacturing variations that reduce the susceptibility to radiation damage. Due to the extensive development and testing required to produce a radiation-tolerant design of a microelectronic chip, the technology of radiation-hardened chips tends to lag behind the most recent developments. Radiation-hardened products are typically tested to one or more resultant-effects tests, including total ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IMAGE (spacecraft)
IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration, Explorer 78 or MIDEX-1) is a NASA Medium Explorer mission that studied the global response of the Earth's magnetosphere to changes in the solar wind. It was believed lost but as of August 2018 might be recoverable. It was launched 25 March 2000, at 20:34:43.929 UTC, by a Delta II launch vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a two-year mission. Almost six years later, it unexpectedly ceased operations in December 2005 during its extended mission and was declared lost. The spacecraft was part of NASA's Sun-Earth Connections Program, and its data has been used in over 400 research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. It had special cameras that provided various breakthroughs in understanding the dynamics of plasma around the Earth. The principal investigator was Jim Burch of the Southwest Research Institute. In January 2018, an amateur satellite tracker found it to be transmitting some signals back t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RISC Single Chip
The RISC Single Chip, or RSC, is a single-chip microprocessor developed and fabricated by International Business Machines (IBM). The RSC was a feature-reduced single-chip implementation of the POWER1, a multi-chip central processing unit (CPU) which implemented the POWER instruction set architecture (ISA). It was used in entry-level workstation models of the IBM RS/6000 family, such as the Model 220 and 230. The RSC operated at frequencies of 33 and 45 MHz. It has three execution units: a fixed point unit, floating point unit and branch processor; and an 8 KB unified instruction and data cache. Like the POWER1, the memory controller and I/O was tightly integrated, with the functional units responsible for the functions: a memory interface unit and sequencer unit; residing on the same die as the processor. The RSC contains nine functional units: fixed-point execution unit (FXU), floating-point execution unit (FPU), the memory management unit (MMU), memory interface un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Exploration Rover
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, '' Spirit'' and '' Opportunity'', exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers to explore the Martian surface and geology; both landed on Mars at separate locations in January 2004. Both rovers far outlived their planned missions of 90 Martian solar days: MER-A ''Spirit'' was active until March 22, 2010, while MER-B ''Opportunity'' was active until June 10, 2018. Objectives The mission's scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. The mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, which includes three previous successful landers: the two Viking program landers in 1976 and Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997. The total cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers on the surface for the initial 90-sol primary mission was US$820 mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Climate Orbiter
The ''Mars Climate Orbiter'' (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter) was a robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998, to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes and to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor '98 program for Mars Polar Lander. However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was permanently lost as it went into orbital insertion. The spacecraft encountered Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the planet, and it was either destroyed in the atmosphere or escaped the planet's vicinity and entered an orbit around the Sun. An investigation attributed the failure to a measurement mismatch between two software systems: metric units by NASA and US customary units by spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin. Mission background History After the loss of '' Mars Observer'' and the onset of the rising costs associated with the future International Space Station, NASA began seeking less e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Force Research Laboratory
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, planning and executing the Air Force science and technology program, and providing warfighting capabilities to United States air, space, and cyberspace forces. It controls the entire Air Force science and technology research budget which was $2.4 billion in 2006. The Laboratory was formed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, on 31 October 1997 as a consolidation of four Air Force laboratory facilities (Wright, Phillips, Rome, and Armstrong) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under a unified command. The Laboratory is composed of eight technical directorates, one wing, and the Office of Scientific Research. Each technical directorate emphasizes a particular area of research within the AFRL mission which it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
