From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,28884ababe039e0d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!proxad.net!proxad.net!216.196.110.148.MISMATCH!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!feeder2.news.jippii.net!reader1.news.jippii.net!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: Niklas Holsti Organization: Tidorum Ltd User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050513 Debian/1.7.8-1 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: New Ada space project References: <421b23c0$1_1@baen1673807.greenlnk.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:32:39 +0200 NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.17.205.61 X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@saunalahti.com X-Trace: reader1.news.jippii.net 1131561449 81.17.205.61 (Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:37:29 EET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 20:37:29 EET Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6328 Date: 2005-11-09T20:32:39+02:00 List-Id: Anonymous Coward wrote: > In article <421b23c0$1_1@baen1673807.greenlnk.net>, > Martin Dowie wrote: > >>http://www.aonix.com/pr_02.22.05b.html >> >>Good to see that the ESA are still using Ada! Well, some people within ESA favour Ada, others not. For example, some argue for using Java in the Galileo navigation system. In my experience (from an earlier life up to about 2003), ESA nowadays accepts the programming language that the prime contractor -- usually one of the larger European space companies such as EADS or Alcatel-Alenia -- chooses for a project. The incidence of C seems to be increasing, for all the usual (poor) reasons. The last project I worked on had application SW in Ada and low-level I/O drivers in C, "because bit manipulation would be much harder in Ada" according to the subcontractor for the computer HW and driver SW. The next project from the same prime contractor was to be all in C "because this is our strategic decision" according to the prime. I quit. (OK, I had other reasons too.) > Does anyone have any idea whether it would be easy for a U.S. citizen > with five years ADA experience to get a job at the ESA? I'm thinking > along the lines of one of the Holland branches (are there others?), > but english is my only language. If you want to write spacecraft software in Ada for ESA projects, you don't want a job with ESA, but with a European space software company, either one of the large "prime" contractors or a smaller subcontractor specialized in software development. ESA itself does very little SW development, as far as I know. They define and oversee projects but the projects are implemented by contractors. Companies that do SW work for ESA projects exist in many if not all of the ESA member states; I know of companies in Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Austria (listed in no particular order). Pick your place. Most of these companies also do other SW work, few are exclusively space-oriented. I can't say if U.S. citizenship would usually be an obstacle, but I guess this would depend on whether the company or division also does defence or airplane work, which is more likely for the larger companies. The small company that I worked at (Space Systems Finland Ltd, www.ssf.fi) would not have any problem with U.S. citizens, I believe. For the language, all ESA project are run in English; all the documentation etc. is in English. Of course, your colleagues may prefer to speak their native language socially. Occasionally you may run into national space projects that merge with or become ESA projects, and then a knowledge of the original national language may be very useful. In one case, I received a SW requirements document that was originally in French, from a French space project, and was now being translated and updated for reusing the SW in an ESA project. At that point in time, the original requirements were in French and the changes were in English, sometimes mixing languages (and acronyms!) in the same sentence, which was a bit confusing (although it meant that change markers were not needed :-) Eventually the doc was translated completely into English, I believe -- I was no longer involved then. But beware that although English is a certainty, Ada is not. Your first or next ESA project may be Ada, C, Java or who-knows-what. -- Niklas Holsti Tidorum Ltd niklas holsti tidorum fi . @ .