Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Debugging The Spirit Rover

Posted by timothy on from the at-a-distance dept.

icebike writes "eeTimes has a story on how the Mars Rover was essentially reprogrammed from millions of miles away. 'How do you diagnose an embedded system that has rendered itself unobservable? That was the riddle a Jet Propulsion Laboratory team had to solve when the Mars rover Spirit capped a successful landing on the Martian surface with a sequence of stunning images and then, darkness.' The outcome strikes me as an extremely Lucky Hack, and the rover could have just as likely been lost forever. Are there lessons here that we can use here on the third rock for recovery of our messed up machines which we manage from afar via ssh?"

3 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What's the big deal?? by mattkime · · Score: 1, Redundant

    As long as all hardware components are working and there is connectivity to the machine, it doesn't matter whether the machine is a few miles away or a million miles away.

    ...and I suppose you have the entire news media providing constant updates to the world about your server reboots.

    Actually, it is interesting only because its NASA and it happened on mars. NASA projects tend to have circumstances a bit different from most of us.
    --
    Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
  2. Re:Space Technology by sangreal66 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    My '89 temp runs great...

  3. Re:Space Technology by Kurt+Russell · · Score: 0, Redundant
    WOuld a 91 ford escort still be running today? I think not.


    And why not? I have a 90 mustang 5.0 with 168k on the clock. My girl has an 88 grand am with 220k..;-)