a. ITER Organization, CS 90 046, 13067 St. Paul lez Durance Cedex, France
b Tessella plc, 26 The Quadrant, Abingdon Science Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 3YS, UK
c projectglobe.com, 108 Totteridge House, 15 Yelverton Road, London SW11 3QH, UK

The ITER Organization, in common with many other fusion laboratories, has an authenticated-access website devoted to the communication of information to all its staff and remote collaborators. In 2007 and 2008, the number of registered users of this site increased by more than a factor of ten, to over 3000 at present, and with approximately 900 unique users using the website per month. In parallel, the project management of the organisation has been put in place.

A decision was taken to move the web platform from simple HTML to Microsoft SharePoint [1] and to web-enable the many applications and databases used for ITER management. This decision has been well justified by the power and extensive flexibility provided by SharePoint, for example it permits different groups to publish their own information and to collaborate, and to consolidate disparate spreadsheet data in linked SharePoint lists to improve quality and maintainability.

This paper examines the use of SharePoint at ITER: why it was selected and what benefits it brings to both the local and remote ITER community. Some active case studies are presented. The paper also looks ahead at what future benefits to ITER this platform offers, and reviews the type of information that the site can profitably publish.

The paper also highlights some of the limitations of the platform, the problems of integration with other ITER systems, and discusses its potential for adaptability in other scientific organisations.

© 2010 ITER Organization. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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Tessella are immensely proud to have been part of the consortium, which included Dutch Space and SENER, in this exciting project. The consortium developed the system that controls the orientation and orbit of Planck. Tessella were responsible for the sensor and actuator simulation models, vital to understanding and testing the behaviour of Planck before launch; and the Pointing Error Budget, a statistical analysis of this spinning spacecraft taking into account all the factors that could affect Planck’s ability to point with phenomenal accuracy, essential to providing high quality scientific data.

Oxford, UK | December 8, 2010. Tessella, the international provider of science powered technology and consulting services is pleased to announce that the European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Tessella to develop generic sets of unit simulation models that can be used by AOCS providers throughout the project lifecycle, from study simulators through to real time test benches. It is anticipated that the developed models will be a valuable resource for the AOCS development community, providing validated reusable modules that will deliver significant savings in the AOCS development, verification and validation process.

ESA are currently funding a study aimed at prototyping several sensor and actuator simulation models to be used for attitude, orbit and control system (AOCS) performance analysis, verification and validation on a range of test environments, including Avionics test benches.

A consortium, led by Tessella, including Thales Alenia Space and EADS Astrium, won the competitively tendered contract to develop these generic simulation models for specified units (star tracker, gyro and reaction wheels). The consortium’s approach will ensure that development guidelines are specified in order to meet the needs of the AOCS community at the several steps of the AOCS development cycle, and that the simulation models are validated against real hardware.

Alan Gaby, director at Tessella commented: “We are delighted that ESA has chosen Tessella for this prestigious project. It demonstrates our ability to deliver value to clients by innovative use of advanced modelling approaches. In addition, our team benefits enormously from the participation of two world leading spacecraft prime contractors, EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space”

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About Tessella

Founded in 1980, Tessella is the international provider of science powered technology and consulting services. World leading organizations choose our unique blend of science, engineering and sector expertise to deliver innovative and cost-effective solutions to complex real-world commercial and technical challenges. Our people are high achievers from leading universities and are passionate about delivering value to clients. We are proud that our work makes the world a better place to live in: developing smarter drug trials; preserving the digital heritage of nations across the globe; minimizing risk in oil and gas exploration; controlling the orbit and attitude of satellites; researching fusion energy.

For further information visit www.tessella.com

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The Soyuz-Fregat launcher lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 17.11 UTC on October 19th. Shortly afterwards, Globalstar confirmed that all six satellites had been successfully deployed from the launch vehicle in the targeted orbit, and were in communication with the ground station, and operating as planned. Three further sets of six satellites are scheduled to be launched in the first half of 2011, bringing Globalstar’s mobile satellite voice and data communications services back up to full capacity.

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Robert McGreevy will draw on his extensive experience at the STFC ISIS Facility, and explain how these issues are being addressed for the benefit of research science globally. Nicholas Draper, consultant at Tessella, will then expand on this, using the example of the Mantid project at ISIS.

Tessella and Physics World free webinar on the current state of scientific research software available on demand

In the 60 years since the invention of the digital computer, millions of lines of code have been developed to support scientific research. Although an increasingly important part of almost all research projects, most research software is barely fit for purpose compared to equivalent systems in the commercial world. The code is hard to understand or maintain, lacking documentation and version control, and is continually ‘re-invented’ as the code writers move on to new jobs. This represents a tremendous waste of the already inadequate resources that are put into its development. We will investigate how this situation has come about, why it is important to the future of research, and what can be done about it.

Robert McGreevy will draw on his extensive experience at the STFC ISIS Facility, and explain how these issues are being addressed for the benefit of research science globally. Nicholas Draper, consultant at Tessella, will then expand on this, using the example of the Mantid project at ISIS.

To listen to the on demand version of this free webinar click here

To find out more or to register online visit http://www.stfc.ac.uk/KE/Events/spacetech.aspx

Defence Research 2010 is the only official UK MOD event to present the whole of the MOD’s £450 million annual research investment to the industry, academia and other suppliers, alongside key members of the MOD and Armed Services.  To find out more or to register as a delegate, visit http://www.defenceresearch.co.uk/

For more about Tessella and the defence sector, visit http://www.tessella.com/markets-clients/public-sector/defence/