Remote Router Control for NASA
General Projection succesfully installed and tested the firm's new Remote Video Router Control System (RVRCS) developed for NASA through its Prime Contractor ERC.

Introduction

NASA asked General Projection to create an easy-to-use router control package that could be replicated, installed and/or moved at anytime, anywhere in the world. The purpose was to allow remote tracking stations, allied space commands and NASA facilities worldwide to be able to change video feeds that come into NASA's huge Pesa video routers at Huntsville, Alabama.

Mission control at the European Space Agency

The challenge included finding remote data paths from every corner of the world back to Huntsville and then creating user friendly products that would allow someone in, say, Madagascar to change video programming as simply as one changes channels on their home television.

Design

General Projection began by utilizing AMX control frames along with proprietary control panels and software developed by General Projection for the long haul control of Pesa equipment.

The first use of the system, to prove the concept, was installed at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany. ESOC is a facility of ESA, the European Space Agency, which is the European equivelant of NASA.

ERC officials indicate that the system will easily pay for itself as ESOC and others would previously routinely fly an engineer to Alabama and then "wait for a phone call" to change feeds. Now complex routing and signal events occur with the touch of a button thanks to the General Projection product.

Success

The next controller was then installed in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Lewis Research Center, to support the Space Shuttle mission known as MSL for "Microgravity Science Laboratory."

In addition to controlling Pesa routers, General Projection makes similar remote control systems for other video routing systems such as Grass Valley, Dynair, Utah Scientific and many others.

For more information on long distance remote control, video routing systems and complex video transmission systems, please contact us through our Information Request form or by emailing Solutions@genproj.com