James Webb Space Telescope to rely on IBM open standards software.
A NASA space telescope scheduled to launch in 2013 will be built using IBM open standards-based software designed to prevent problems caused when software programs developed by various agencies are incompatible with each other, IBM officials announced today.
Components and instruments for the Hubble Space Telescope were built by multiple organizations using proprietary software that lacked a unified modeling language, which ensures that software code in one program can be easily related to that in another program.
It is a “nightmare to manage” a telescope in which each instrument is built using tools that are incompatible with each other, says Glenn Cammarata, leader of NASA’s integrated science instrument module flight software development team at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Typically, contractors working for NASA “build the instruments how they want … they’ll use software and design tools as they see fit,” Cammarata says. “After these things go into flight, somebody has to maintain it, and it’s not [the contractors], it’s Goddard.”
NASA wanted to take a more streamlined approach to software development for the James Webb Space Telescope, a planned infrared telescope that is expected to study every phase of the history of the universe, from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of galaxies, stars and solar systems.
The JWST is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, with contractors including Northrop Grumman Space Technologies.
The various software systems needed to operate the telescope will be designed using IBM’s Rational Rose Real-Time, open standards-based software. The open standards software is like a blueprint, allowing developers of individual telescope components and instruments to “drag and drop” software code into the blueprint, making it available to everyone else working on the project.
In addition to allowing contractors to work more closely together, this will make it easier for NASA to maintain the telescope once it is launched. IBM’s unified modeling language will allow any programmer to examine the software for any component and understand the system architecture, which is embedded in millions of lines of code, says Sky Matthews, senior manager for IBM Rational software.
Fixing Hubble software often required finding the person who wrote code in the original software, according to Matthews.
“Once you get into millions of lines of code, it’s really difficult for a new programmer coming onto a project to make a change or understand how different subsystems relate to each other,” he says.
The Hubble maintenance team spent 10 years putting all the software tools into the same format, Cammarata says.
Besides unified modeling language, the IBM Rational system keeps a history of changes made to software code, and has a central repository to record defects that must be fixed.
It’s hard to estimate how much money will be saved because of the decision to use open standards software. It could be a few million dollars, or 10 times that, Cammarata says.
What is clear is “it makes our job, I would say, about 90% easier,” he says. “Because we’re using the same design tools, every team understands everybody else’s software.”
In an undertaking like the James Webb Space Telescope, small mistakes can be disastrous. “If it doesn’t work, you flew into the sun and your spacecraft is done, it’s history,” Cammarata says.
In 1996, the first test flight of the European rocket known as Ariane-5 exploded 37 seconds after launch, destroying $500 million worth of satellites.
The explosion was traced back to an error in source code, according to Matthews.
IBM has been selling Rational products for about five years, and customers include builders of missiles, aircraft, medical equipment and consumer electronics.
“Probably every time you make a phone call, it’s going over a switch whose software was designed or built using our tools,” Matthews says.
Though open standards has become common in the business sector, Matthews says this is the first time NASA has used the IBM Rational system.
“This is a fairly major shift in approach for NASA,” he says. “They traditionally have been very conservative in their adoption of new technologies and new tools, but I think they’ve found that conservative approach just doesn’t hold up when you start to reach a [certain] size and complexity.”
According to NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope will use several innovative technologies designed specifically for the project, including a folding, segmented primary mirror that will adjust to shape after launch; ultra-lightweight beryllium optics; detectors able to record extremely weak signals; and microshutters that enable programmable object selection for the spectrograph.
NASA says all of these technologies will be ready for demonstration this month.
After the launch planned for 2013, the telescope will pursue four primary science goals: identifying the first bright objects that formed in the early universe; the evolution of galaxies and dark matter; the birth of stars and protoplanetary systems; and the physical and chemical properties of solar systems, including the building blocks of life.
