Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

Mars Rover/Mission Thread: Following Our Curiosity


Sharpshooter

Recommended Posts

You know what would mean more to NASA than a phone call? How about increasing their budget.

But honestly, still a nice gesture! Getting that 1-tonne nuclear rover onto Mars was a great success. Hopefully it is able to turn up something the other rovers couldn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know what would mean more to NASA than a phone call? How about increasing their budget.

But honestly, still a nice gesture! Getting that 1-tonne nuclear rover onto Mars was a great success. Hopefully it is able to turn up something the other rovers couldn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's probably not even on Mars, the pictures look like it's on some desert in earth that's been edited. I even saw a pic that looked like it has a dirt road far in the background.

NASA

never a straight answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's probably not even on Mars, the pictures look like it's on some desert in earth that's been edited. I even saw a pic that looked like it has a dirt road far in the background.

NASA

never a straight answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know what would mean more to NASA than a phone call? How about increasing their budget.

But honestly, still a nice gesture! Getting that 1-tonne nuclear rover onto Mars was a great success. Hopefully it is able to turn up something the other rovers couldn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NASA's Mars Curiosity software upgrade nearly complete

Update for rover's main computer done, backup computer halfway done

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is three-quarters of the way through a major software upgrade NASA has dubbed a "brain transplant."

The four-day software upgrade started on Saturday and, if all goes as planned, should wrap up by Tuesday afternoon. And so far all has gone exactly as planned, said Guy Webster, a spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

There are two computers onboard Curiosity, which has been on the surface of Mars for just a little more than a full week. The main computer was upgraded over the weekend and now the backup computer is halfway through its own upgrade.

[ Get served with the latest developments on data centres and servers in Computerworld's Storage newsletter ]

The software upgrade, dubbed R10, is focused on running the rover's surface mission. It was uploaded to the rover during its 350-million-mile trek to Mars but it sat waiting to be activated.

Instead, software focused on getting the spacecraft through the Martian atmosphere and safely landed inside the Gale Crater ran operations.

Now that the rover is on the ground and ready to begins its surface mission, it was time to transition to the new software.

"The surface mission is quite complicated and needs a lot of smarts," Ben Cichy, a senior software and systems engineer at JPL, said late last week. "Curiosity was born to drive. We're giving her the capability to get out and stretch her wheels on the surface of Mars."

The surface software holds advanced controls to drive Curiosity, as well as to operate its 7-foot robotic arm, its ability to scoop up soil samples and its ability to spot hazards in its path.

Curiosity is tasked with a two-year mission designed to gather evidence that Mars is, or has been, capable of supporting life, probably in microbial form.

The SUV-sized, nuclear-powered robotic rover is equipped with 10 scientific instruments. Curiosity has the most advanced payload of scientific gear ever used on the surface of Mars, including chemistry instruments, environmental sensors and radiation monitors.

The payload is more than 10 times as large as those of earlier Mars rovers.

Curiosity isn't working alone on Mars. Along with a few Mars orbiters, NASA also has one other working rover on the Red Planet.

NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers have been two of the agency's most successful robotic projects. While Spirit was given up for dead last year, both rovers worked on the Martian surface for more than six years -- far longer than the three months that NASA initially expected them to last.

However, the rover Opportunity continues its work. It has been upgraded with artificial intelligence software to enable the robot to make some of its own decisions about what rocks or geological formations it should stop and analyze.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...