A YORK software company is expanding after winning a space exploration contract.

Rapita Systems, which creates tools to test the effectiveness of software in safety-critical real-time areas such as the electronic systems used in aircraft, spacecraft and automotive engineering control systems, which control airbags and ABS in cars, is due to start 2012 by working on the Solar Orbiter for the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Solar Orbiter is a space probe which will study the behaviour of the sun from just 42 million kilometres away, closer than any spacecraft has ever been before.

Rapita will test the energetic particle detector – a series of five telescopes which will measure the energy created by solar particles – to make sure it works properly before the Solar Orbiter sets off on its long journey in 2017.

Rapita, founded seven years ago as a spin-off from the University of York, exported 60 per cent of its products last year to clients around the world, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, China, Brazil, Canada and the US.

Now the business, which currently employs 13 people at its base on York Science Park, is expanding, recruiting a software developer, software field engineer and sales person over the next few months.

Dr Guillem Bernat, chief executive, said that with technology constantly changing and more things being controlled electronically, the market for the product is huge. Aircraft systems businesses, such as BAE Systems, Honeywell and Airbus, are using and developing powerful microprocessors, which offer weight reduction and maintenance savings, but require significantly more complex software than previous systems, he said.

Referring to the car industry, he said: “The number of breakdowns that can be traced back to bugs in automotive electronic systems has been estimated at more than 50 per cent.

“In 2003 alone, warranty expenditure by automotive companies in the US exceeded $11 billion, with as much as half of this expenditure related to problems with software.”