Wind River Customers

NASA's Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program is responsible for providing maximum levels of safety and efficiency for mission-critical software. To meet the challenge of rising development and maintenance costs during software verification and validation, the IV&V team turned to Wind River® Simics. Learn how NASA reduced risks and costs and increased quality, engineering efficiency, and long-term cost savings.

On August 6, 2012, NASA landed Curiosity, the world's most technologically advanced autonomous robotic spacecraft, in the Gale Crater on Mars. Learn how Wind River VxWorks® controls the craft's operations, from the initial launch to the "seven minutes of terror" landing, to the complex, mission-critical tasks it will perform on Mars to determine whether the planet is or has ever been capable of supporting life.

General Dynamics, the leading integrator of secure communication and information systems and technology, was tasked with designing and building NASA's Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), now referred to as Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope. Learn how simulating the satellite hardware with Wind River Simics enabled the company to achieve a more cost- and time-effective testing and training platform.

Iridium Communications Inc., a global mobile satellite communications company, needed to develop and test new software for a constellation of satellites already in orbit. Learn how Wind River Simics helped the company meet this challenge while mitigating risks, lowering costs, and ensuring engineers can "fly what they test and test what they fly."

The Wind River VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS) is a key technology for the X-47B in the Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) program. VxWorks was chosen by Northrop Grumman as the software platform for the UCAS-D program and by GE Aviation as the foundation for the Common Core System, the backbone of UCAS-D computers, networks, and interfacing electronics. VxWorks provides the primary computing environment for the X-47B.

Wind River VxWorks 653 Platform powers the foundation of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's common core system (CCS). The CCS is the backbone of the Boeing 787's computers, networks, and interfacing electronics and provides the primary computing environment for the Dreamliner.

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS), developed by Logica, uses the Wind River VxWorks RTOS to fulfill the design challenges of the safety critical EGNOS Integrity Processing Facility (IPF). Learn how EGNOS engineers were able to conduct development and safety certification in a phased approach using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software and migrate to certifiable VxWorks without rewriting the application.

Ultra Electronics Datel, which specializes in systems for global defense, security, and aerospace applications, needed to upgrade a pre-existing avionics system to meet a new DO-178B Level B safety certification requirement, while migrating from proprietary hardware to a ruggedized COTS-based hardware solution. Learn why the company turned to VxWorks to meet these stringent midlife-system challenges.

When this national defense company embarked on a new project to build a rugged, handheld communications device, it couldn't compromise on security and reliability. The Wind River VxWorks platform and services met Sandia's RTOS reliability requirements, cut development costs, and decreased time-to-market by two and a half years.

Started in 2002 by Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, SpaceX is developing a family of launch vehicles at a fraction of the cost of its U.S. competitors. To accelerate time-to-market and reduce cost, SpaceX selected the Wind River VxWorks platform for its Falcon flight computers to provide rocket launch control and remote management operations.

Honeywell Aerospace is the prime contractor for NASA's New Millennium Program Space Technology 8 (ST8) Dependable Multiprocessor project. The company recently selected Wind River Platform for Network Equipment, Linux Edition as the underlying operating system to support the processing of complex scientific data aboard the ST8 spacecraft.

BAE Systems and Wind River have collaborated for nearly 15 years to produce safe, secure, reliable products for the aerospace and defense industry.

BAE Systems selected VxWorks for the Tornado Advanced Radar Display Information System (TARDIS) used in the Tornado GR4 aircraft for the U.K. Royal Air Force. By standardizing on the Wind River platform for the TARDIS project, BAE Systems gained a trusted, pre-integrated foundation that enables them to accelerate design development and meet stringent safety and security requirements.

When BAE Systems wanted to design the SCC500TM Series of infrared (IR) camera cores, the company turned to the Wind River VxWorks RTOS for a proven off-the-shelf solution that won't fail under pressure.

When Barco, a Belgium-based aerospace and defense company, developed a platform for the development and operation of real-time display solutions in aircraft, it chose VxWorks because Wind River could meet stringent safety and security standards such as ARINC 653 and RTCA DO-178B like no other vendor.

The GTC project is developing the largest telescope in the world. Wind River General Purpose Platform, VxWorks Edition provides the high-performance RTOS that enables this scientific and academic collaboration to develop applications that reach for the stars—instead of configuring components.

Aeronautics and space industry research center Centro Italiano di Ricerche Aerospaziali (CIRA) was tasked with developing spacecraft that would act as flying laboratories. VxWorks is at the core of CIRA's first unmanned space vehicle—the RTOS performs mission-critical, complex functions that help meet the stringent critical requirements of this project.

While developing sophisticated control software to enable air-to-air fueling for a new military aircraft, European Aeronautic Defense and Space (EADS) turned to Wind River. Our VxWorks RTOS helped EADS create a high-quality, flexible, low-risk, cost-effective technology that complies with ARINC 653 requirements.

When Eurocopter Group, a top aerospace company, began developing a new helicopter cockpit and avionics system, VxWorks was at the core of its efforts to optimize the software development process while reducing costs. Wind River helped Eurocopter develop a state-of-the art product on time and attain DO-178B Level A safety certification.

"We chose Wind River's VxWorks operating system for PROBA because of its robustness and proven reliability on space missions," said Dominique Baudoux, Space Business Unit Program Manager for Spacebel, the subcontractor responsible for providing PROBA's flight software. "Because PROBA operates virtually unaided, we needed a trustworthy operating system capable of reliable operation while in space. PROBA is thus far a great success, and we are very pleased with the software."

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Wind River has a long history of collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with our VxWorks RTOS at the heart of the Mars Exploration Rovers. Our reliable technology helps these robot geologists perform complex, mission-critical tasks, such as trajectory, descent and ground operations control, data collection, and Mars-to-Earth communication relay.

Raytheon, a leader in commercial and defense electronics, built the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) on VxWorks. Wind River certifiable products and support helped Raytheon deliver a quality safety-critical product that met Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements.

Smiths Aerospace, now GE Aviation Systems, and Wind River have worked together for years to develop innovative, reliable, FAA-certified systems. Wind River helped Smiths Aerospace reduce costs, size, and power consumption for the common core system of its Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner aircraft while meeting stringent security and safety requirements.