Wind River Solutions for the Aerospace &amp; Defense Market

Sandia National Laboratories

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. Wind River’s VxWorks platform and services met Sandia’s RTOS reliability requirements, cut development costs, and decreased time-to-market by two and a half years.

SpaceX

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 Wind River's VxWorks platform for its Falcon flight computers to provide rocket launch control and remote management operations.

Honeywell
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.

Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC)
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.

CIRA
Aeronautics and space industry research center Centro Italiano di Ricerche Aerospaziali (CIRA) was tasked with developing spacecraft that would act as flying laboratories. Wind River's 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.

Success Story

SELEX Communications
SELEX, a leading communications supplier to military and civilian customers, embarked on a new challenge: to create a demo prototype of an innovative software-defined radio (SDR) solution. Wind River's VxWorks helped SELEX develop a reliable product while saving the company time and money.

BAE Systems
BAE Systems and Wind River have collaborated for nearly 15 years to produce safe, secure, reliable products for the aerospace and defense industry. When BAE wanted to design new infrared camera cores, the company once again turned to Wind River's VxWorks for proven off-the-shelf solutions that won't fail under pressure.

EADS/CASA
While developing sophisticated control software to enable air-to-air fueling for a new military aircraft, European Aeronautic Defense and Space (EADS) Company 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.

Eurocopter
When Eurocopter Group, a top aerospace company, began developing a new helicopter cockpit and avionics system, Wind River's 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.

European Space Agency
"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."

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