SPACE is the latest frontier for a Winnipeg high-tech company that is helping NASA provide higher quality video from its shuttles.

Linear Systems Ltd.'s work will be on display from outer space for the first time tomorrow afternoon when the Space Shuttle Atlantis is to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Tom Thorsteinson, the company's founder and president, who was flying to Florida yesterday to view the launch, said Linear has been working with NASA for about eight months.

"They were looking for ways of streaming their HD (high-definition) video and they learned about our products through our distributor in the U.S.," Thorsteinson said in an interview Thursday at his Dublin Avenue office.

"NASA has been testing the technology in their lab for quite a while and now this is the first actual implementation of it," he said.

Linear Systems contributed a computer card and software for transmitting video from Atlantis to Earth.

The high-resolution video will help NASA to better monitor the shuttle's crew and instruments as Atlantis astronauts install a 16-tonne truss and a second set of solar panels onto the International Space Station.

"It's going to be the new generation, high-definition television video, and they needed our widget to fit into the overall design that they have for transmitting the video," Thorsteinson said modestly.

"Because it has a little higher resolution, it's more useful to them than the older video that they used previously," he said.

Linear Systems Ltd.'s launch was a little less spectacular than that of a space shuttle, but the company's fortunes have taken off recently with the evolution of digital video for television.

Thorsteinson and his late wife, Linda, started the company in 1979 when they moved back to Winnipeg from Ottawa to start a family.

"I was in an area of engineering that wasn't too popular in Winnipeg at the time, so we decided to try to hang out the shingle," he said.

At first, the company consisted of the couple and one technician.

From his previous work, Thorsteinson had contacts in the potash industry, and for years the company survived largely on contracts with mining companies in Saskatchewan. Among the equipment Linear developed and marketed was a device that, when held up to the wall of a potash mine, gave miners a quick reading of the percentage of potash in the ore.

Looking at Linear Some facts about Linear Systems Ltd. of Winnipeg: • Founded: 1979, by Tom Thorsteinson, an electrical engineer, and his late wife, Linda. • Employs: 22 people, including 12 engineers, at facilities on Dublin Avenue. • Annual sales: about $5 million. • Specialty: developing systems for the transmission of digital video. • Job for NASA: supplying a computer card and software that will help transmit higher quality video from the Space Shuttle Atlantis to Earth. • Liftoff time: 3:30 p.m. CDT Sunday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. • Quote: "It's a highlight for me... to have one of our products, that we developed here, involved with (the shuttle)." --Tom Thorsteinson, company president.

While supplying the potash industry, the company began developing communication cards or boards.

And the company's current work -- developing systems for transmitting digital video -- evolved from that.

"The latest thing that we've been doing is developing computer systems, a complete turn-key package, for doing certain things," Thorsteinson said.

One of the company's new products is called a "time shifter" that's able to capture digital video and store it for a length of time before retransmitting it in its original form.

"What we're doing is the equivalent of a tape delay. We're doing it digitally using computer disks and things like that."

Linear Systems Ltd. has annual revenues of about $5 million.

"In the last year and a half, we've found that we're growing quite rapidly," Thorsteinson said. But for pure excitement, it's tough to top having your work be part of a space shuttle voyage.

"It's a highlight for me... to have one of our products, that we developed here, involved with that," Thorsteinson said.

Asked if he thinks this will mark the beginning of a lengthy relationship with NASA, Thorsteinson is cautious.

"We just have to react to what they need," he said. "I hope there is more to it, but you can never tell."

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Source: Winnipeg Free Press