The Space Shuttle launch computer control system at NASA KennedySpace Center

摘要

This paper illustrates how a complex application, the dataacquisition and Space Shuttle Launch Control System at NASA KennedySpace Center, which requires both intensive communications and highprocessing power, can be mapped into an advanced open systemarchitecture. This is achieved by employing a symmetric, tightly-coupledmultiprocessor system which includes a high bandwidth common memory bus,an efficient interrupt distribution scheme, dedicated high-performanceI/O processors, and runs a multiprocessor real-time UNIX operatingsystem. The authors concentrate on the Data Acquisition System. First,the communication and processing requirements for the system isspecified. Then, on the basis of the model of the system, themultiprocessor architecture is defined to meet these requirements