Arduino in space…

Jim McGuire of the Stensat Group sent this report on what might be the most exteme environment that an Arduino’s been deployed in yet:

“In addition to the primary ISS construction mission, STS-127 is carrying two 19-inch spherical satellites scheduled for deployment on Mission Day 16. The two spheres, Castor and Pollux [http://eludium.stensat.org.nyud.net/ANDE/Main.html], are part of the Atmospheric Neutral Density Experiment (ANDE) that studies atmospheric perturbations in the LEO environment. Castor [http://eludium.stensat.org.nyud.net/ANDE/Castor.html] contains an ARM processor, while Pollux is running an Atmel ATMega CPU. Pollux [http://eludium.stensat.org.nyud.net/ANDE/Pollux.html] also contains student payloads developed with Arduino on Atmel AVRs. Both satellites transmit telemetry using the FX.25 FEC format [http://www.stensat.org.nyud.net/Docs/Docs.htm] developed by the Stensat guys [http://www.stensat.org.nyud.net/satellites.htm]. Many components are commercial-grade, purchased from Digikey. This is the second ANDE mission, following the successful deployment of MAA and FCal [http://www.usna.edu.nyud.net/Users/aero/bruninga/fcal.html] on STS-116 (both also flying commercial components.)”