Wired News: Linux Rocket Hits the Launch Pad

“Eight people and a dozen laptops were crammed into a tiny
windowless conference room at 5 p.m. last Monday. On the laptops:
untested code. On the conference table: piles of silicon and metal.
On the people’s minds: escalating, deadline-induced panic.

“But by 2:30 a.m., data was being transmitted wirelessly to what
had become a laptop-based flight control center for a
Linux-controlled rocket. The aircraft was a few steps closer to
blasting off into the upper atmosphere.

“Project leaders Andrew Greenberg and Brian O’Neel breathed a
sigh of relief–finally they had some assurance that they weren’t,
as Greenberg put it, ‘going to look like complete idiots’ when they
present the team’s research this week at Usenix 2003, a major
technical conference…”

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