A scientific study of the problems of digital
engineering for space flight systems,
with a view to their practical solution.
2001 MAPLD International Conference
Kossiakoff Conference Center
The Johns Hopkins University- Applied Physics Laboratory
11100 Johns Hopkins Road
Laurel, Maryland 20723-6099
September 11-13, 2001
Beginning with "programmable logic" and moving on to digital computers like those on our desktops, NASA led the design and building of ever more powerful spacecraft command sytems, data formatters, and attitude controllers from the late 1960s through the 1970s. This talk concentrates on the development of the Mariner, Viking, and Voyager machines, which were all essentially custom built. We survey hardware design, software, and reliability schemes.
Dr. James E. Tomayko is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Computer Science at
Carnegie Mellon University, and a Senior Member of the Technical Staff of the Software
Engineering Institute. He is the Director of the Master of Software Engineering Program in
CS. Dr. Tomayko directs the Software Development Studio for the MSE program, which
provides students with a laboratory for direct application of concepts learned in
coursework. The Studio has produced a variety of software products. Clients have included
Boeing, NASA, Westinghouse, Innovative Systems, Inc., and the United States Air
Force. Previously, he was leader of the Academic Education Project at the SEI.
Prior to returning to Carnegie Mellon in 1989, he founded the software engineering
graduate program at The Wichita State University. He has worked in industry through
employee, contract, or consulting relationships with NCR, NASA, Boeing Defense and Space
Group, Carnegie Works, Xerox, the Westinghouse Energy Center, Keithley Instruments, PPG,
and Mycro-Tek.
Dr. Tomayko's courses on managing software development and overviews of software
engineering are the best-selling Academic Series courses in the SEI. He has given seminars
and lectures on software fault tolerance, software development management, and software
process improvement at over 200 universities and companies in the United States, Canada,
Mexico, Argentina, Spain, the United Kingdom, Colombia, China, and France.
He has had a parallel career in the history of technology, specializing in the history of
computing in aerospace. He has written four books and two articles on spacecraft computer
systems and software, primarily concentrating on NASA's systems. For the last eight years,
he has researched the history of fly-by-wire technology, and has published three papers on
the subject. He is currently working on a book about NASA's Intelligent Flight
Control System. Dr. Tomayko is on the editorial staff of the IEEE Annals of the
History of Computing.
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