Java for Space Technology

Sun Microsystems has announced that engineering and manufacturing company ITT Corporation has selected the Sun Java Real-Time System 2.0 (Java RTS) and the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) as the software development platform for its Eglin Control and Signal Processing Upgrade (CSPU) program. The reasons for this according ITT:

…Sun Java RTS is an enterprise-class solution that addresses the issues of latency and unpredictable temporal performance of Java applications. It is compliant with the Real-Time Specification for Java and with Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE). The solution enables hard, soft, and non-real-time functions to be combined in one system, while keeping critical latencies down to 20 microseconds. It enables developers to differentiate processes based on their importance and determine when time-critical functions should be executed.

It must noted that Java has been used in the controlling of Mars Rover!