Abstract

The Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is a small, low-budget amateur aerospace group. PSAS is currently developing medium-sized sub-orbital rockets with the eventual goal of inserting nanosatellites (satellites that weigh less than 10 kg) into orbit. Because achieving orbit requires a navigation system able to guide the rocket along an orbital trajectory, PSAS is pioneering an… open source and open hardware avionics system that is capable of active guidance.

In this paper, we describe how free software and open hardware have dramatically changed the capabilities of amateur aerospace groups like PSAS. We show how we have applied existing and custom free software to the avionics and ground support systems of a sub-orbital sounding rocket, and discuss what further work must be done.

We conclude that the sophistication and complexity achieved by current amateur avionics projects — which are beginning to challenge the distinction between amateur and professional — would not be possible without the use of free software.

Overview

This paper details the role of free software and open hardware in our group, the Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS). First we introduce the field of rocketry, and how PSAS is making contributions to the field. This is followed by a history of the group's rocket development and an overview of our current project. We then cover the details of our system, including requirements, flight software, ground software, and the project management and collaboration tools. Finally, we discuss our future work, and draw conclusions about the applicability of free software to projects like ours . . .

[This article is Copyright © 2003 James Perkins, Andrew Greenberg, Jamey Sharp, Dave Cassard, Bart Massey, and was originally published in “Proceedings of the FREENIX Track: 2003 USENIX Annual Technical Conference” (Berkeley, CA: USENIX Association, 2003). Reproduced by LinuxDevices.com with permission.]

 
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