NASA Launch Control Center Gets a Lift from Dewetron
The Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the busiest launch site in the world, with not only the Space Shuttle launches and landings, but also Delta and other rockets. In 2006, NASA placed two large contracts with Dewetron worth more than $1 million USD for a combination of products to be used in the LCC (launch control center):
The 25 DEWE-901's were quickly installed in the 19" racks at NASA. This machine is perfectly designed for rack mounting, with one or two removable data drives on the front panel, and even the C-drive is removable on the rear panel. The DEWE-901 mounts on slides for easy access when needed.
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Spacecraft Separation!
In the video clip above, you will see NASA engineers watching the data on several DEWE-901's during a Delta II launch from Kennedy Space Center. At the beginning, you will hear the commentator describing the data feed that they are receiving from the Kwajalein Islands tracking station on the other side of the earth. There are more than 30 DEWE-901's in use at NASA's Launch Control Center (LCC) ... and more than 100 Dewetron instruments at all locations at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
To restart the video, RIGHT-CLICK the video window and select PLAY from the menu,
And then there was PCM data...
At the same time, Dewetron software engineers were working on a robust software interface for the Tarsus PCM01 bit sync/decom card. By September of 2006, the Dewetron systems were used for the first time to record hundreds of parameters from Space Shuttle mission STS-115! The DEWE-901's were also instrumental in categorizing and defining the lightning strike which hit the launch pads during this Summer, and provided a huge assist to NASA flight directors in determining if any damage might have been done. The interface to the bit sync/decom card added yet another in a long list of data sources to Dewetron's systems. Years before, Dewetron added a similar interface to the CAN bus so heavily used in the automotive world. Digital video was added just before that. Interface after interface have followed since those early years, until today's Dewetron systems can accept literally hundreds (sometimes more than 1000) channels of data from a wide variety of sources. And these channels can be at different rates and bit resolutions. DEWESoft's uniquely flexible data architecture makes it possible that disparate data sources are recorded synchronously despite their different rates and resolutions.
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Now today...
More DEWE-901's have been added at the LCC since the original installation. As of this writing there are approximately 30 of them in operation. Many of these DEWE-901's have the Tarsus PCM01 bit sync/decom card installed. Dewetron systems have been used to record all Space Shuttle missions since 2001, and since 2006, directly recording digital data coming from the spacecraft, without the need to have it made analog again. At the same time, more than 10 DEWE-901's have been added at the Cape Canaveral AFS a few miles away, where data is recorded from virtually everything that is launched from the largest launch site in the world. In addition to rack mounting DEWE-901 system installed here, Dewetron's portable systems are also used by NASA and Air Force engineers who travel the world recording space mission data. Dewetron is proud to be such a large part of NASA's flight test data recording operations at the Kennedy Space Center.
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