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What else would they use? It seems pretty obvious to go with Android.


NASA flies a lot with VxWorks. They could have ported it to the nexus.


At which point the satellites can no longer be open source. Perhaps more importantly, Android already runs on the Nexus S; VxWorks doesn't. It defeats the purpose of using commodity hardware if you start over from scratch on the software running it.


I agree VxWorks would require additional porting effort. I also think that Android was the right choice for this mission.

I'm not sure I agree with the implied high priority placed on open source. The relative development costs of android, real-time linux, or even a commerical RTOS are noise in the flight software development budget. Reducing the cost is a more important driver to making space more accessible.

The big benefit, if these android cube sats fly successfully, would be to retire a lot of risks - thus opening the door for future programs to fly with android.




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