CHATSWORTH, Calif. 30 Aug. 2009.Aitech Defense Systems Inc. in Chatsworth, Calif., will provide an embedded avionics computer for the Ares I rocket's Instrument Unit Avionics (IUA) Flight Computer (FC) and Command Telemetry Computer (CTC) systems under terms of a contract from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
Aitech will provide its S950 single board computer and S750 PCI mezzanine card (PMC) to Ball Aerospace for a triple-redundant embedded computing configuration to provide flight control redundancy in the instrument avionics flight computer.
The S950 embedded computer offers a 1 GHz processing engine. The soon-to-be-released Aitech S750 four-port Gigabit Ethernet PMC, hosted on the S950 embedded processor as one-slot CompactPCI card set, will relay high-speed imaging data to the crew exploration vehicle's solid state recorder and ground support system.
Aitech's embedded systems are certified for manned space flight where maintaining minimal out-gassing is crucial.
"Using Aitech's components has allowed the program to advance several notches up the technology scale and will save significant amounts of development costs," says Randall Coffey, Ball Aerospace ARES IAU program manager. "These are two important aspects of space-related programs."
Both radiation-tolerant cards are optimized for a wide variety of applications in low- and high-Earth orbit space vehicles such as flight computer and control, engine control, and rocket staging, robotic manipulator control, and instrument interface units.
The cards also are for command and telemetry control, attitude and combustion control, payload control, solar array, and directional control as well as solar array drive electronics (SADE).
The Ares I first stage vehicle booster launches the Orion crew exploration vehicle, which will join other elements of NASA's Constellation program to propel astronauts to the moon -- and beyond -- by 2020.
The instrument avionics flight computer and telemetry computer provide the guidance, navigation and control hardware for the Ares I crew launch vehicle, serving as the vehicle's control subsystem during the rocket's ascent to orbit.
For more information contact Aitech online at www.rugged.com.
