Jan 19 2007
From The Space Library
IBM announced that NASA had selected, for its James Webb Space Telescope (JWST ), IBM’s Rational Rose Real-time software, which used unified modeling language (UML). The choice marked a change in NASA’s strategy for software development and management of its space- based telescopes. Because a number of organizations had used proprietary software to build components and instruments for the HST, the software had lacked a UML, preventing the software codes of the various programs from relating to one another. Furthermore, the contractors who had built the scientific instruments had not maintained them after the launch of the craft. Instead, NASA staff had assumed that responsibility. Glenn Cammarata, leader of NASA’s Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) flight-software development team at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), explained that the management of telescopes with instruments containing incompatible software was a nightmare. Resolving problems in the HST software had often required NASA to locate the person who wrote the code in the original software, whereas IBM’s UML would allow any programmer to examine JWST software and to understand its system architecture. Additionally, the UML would allow close collaboration among the various developers working on individual components of the JWST .
IBM, “NASA Eyes Open Standard Software for Next-Generation James Webb Space Telescope,” press release, 19 January 2007, http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/20901.wss (accessed 30 October 2009); Jon Brodkin, “The Software Plan for NASA’s New Space Telescope,” Infoworld, 23 January 2007.
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