European Space Agency Gives Go To Major Tom

Berlin-based aerospace company PTS (Planetary Transportation Systems) offers engineering services to space agencies and commercial clients. It is the largest subcontractor within the ASTRIS Kick Stage program developed by the ArianeGroup. ASTRIS is an add-on to the Ariane 6 rocket designed to simplify missions by controlling certain built-in propulsion capabilities of the ridesharing payloads, so they can move themselves to their final positions in orbit. PTS has been selected by the European Space Agency ESA to oversee the operating system and electronics in ASTRIS. The ArianeGroup is ESA’s prime contractor. The first project to test drive the PTS circuits in ASTRIS concerns high-performance computing in space by Curium One, which will “operate an innovative redundant GPU processing platform powering the ‘Major Tom’ project”. A more spectacular mission for PTS will be the launch of the HERA probe to an asteroid. Together with NASA, the aim is to explore methods of deflecting dangerous asteroids away from Earth to avoid any potential future collisions. 

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