Red Hat In Spaaaaace

Typically confused BBC science report, rather difficult to work out exactly what's going on here, but:

The technology to link spacecraft to the web is being tested on the current space shuttle mission and briefly turned the Columbia craft into a node on the net...

...To test the technology the Columbia space shuttle was fitted with an embedded PC that has a 233 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM and a solid-state 144 MB hard drive.

The computer is running Red Hat, a version of the Linux operating system, and is maintaining a connection with the Goddard Space Flight Center which will to try to contact the onboard PC more than 140 times over the duration of the shuttle mission STS-107.