Re: Mil question.

[john.mccabe@emrad.ns.com (John McCabe)]

On 26 Feb 2002 08:03:32 -0800, muaddib@digibank.it (Enrico A.) wrote:

>Ciao,
>    I've a mini-question for each Ada-world guru in this Ng.
>Is Ada used and highly requested in the Military and Aereospacial
>(Nasa, Esa ecc...) world yet?

Ada is heavily used in ESA Projects. For example on Envisat-1 (to be
launched on Friday last time I looked) Ada was mandated by the prime
contractor (although there were get-out clauses when required). Most
of the instrument software is probably in Ada. The main instrument,
ASAR, that I worked on at Matra Marconi Space has pretty much all of
its software written in Ada.

ESA have put a lot of effort into development of Ada compilers and
helped fund the ATAC (Ada Tasking Co-Processor) which was designed
with Ada 83 and Mil-Std-1750 in mind to try to make it possible for
users of such low performance kit to be able to use tasking (in a
deterministic manner).

In aerospace, many engine management systems, flight computers and
avionic equipment is programmed in Ada, especially for military
systems (e.g. EuroFighter Typhoon, F22) and commercial airliners such
as the Boeing 777.

It is also used in the TGV somewhere and I believe there is a fair bit
in the London Docklands Light Railway.