Astro Pi - Launcher/Main Program - Released?

[scotty101]

It was mentioned back when AstroPi first came on the scene that there was some kind of master program that would allow the Astronaut to jump between the different 'programs' that the various schools and groups had submitted.

Was this ever released? I recall that the release was mentioned but I didn't ever see it being released.

[scotty101]

I'm guessing that this was never released.

[Davespice]

Hi Scotty

No the MCP was never released for security reasons.

We've had a couple of enquiries about it over the years, it's actually not all that special. It's just a python program so doesn't have any clever memory-paging or voting system to avoid single event upsets and/or latch ups. It's job is just to ensure that every student program receives the allotted run time. It does this by recording how many seconds each experiment has been running for constantly, so in the event of an upset or latch up (where the Pi hardware watchdog kicks in and reboots it) only the remaining time is used when it comes back up and resumes the processing.

I hope this helps.

[scotty101]

That's a shame

What kind of "Security Issues"? Surely no one expects someone to hack in to the Pi's up on the ISS?