Mars Rovers' Software Upgraded

This paves the way... by Fyre2012 · 2007-01-01 10:47 · Score: 5, Funny

... for inter-planetary patch tuesdays!

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This is not the greatest .sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.

Re:This paves the way... by Teresita · 2007-01-01 10:56 · Score: 5, Funny

Rocket scientists associated with the project are cautioned, however, that if their remotely accomplished work-arounds for failing hardware cause the probe to become more than 20% different from the original manufacturer's configuration, this will trigger Microsoft Mars Rover(tm)'s copy protection scheme and invalidate the product activation. JPL will then have to call Redmond, explain the situation to Microsoft's satisfaction, and request permission to continue using Microsoft Mars Rover(tm).
Re:This paves the way... by spiderbitendeath · 2007-01-01 14:05 · Score: 2, Informative

http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalCon tent/0,289142,sid39_gci1157697,00.html Sorry, NASA used Linux.

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Sometimes when I'm working on projects things disappear, I suspect gremlins.
Re:This paves the way... by LarsG · 2007-01-01 15:36 · Score: 2, Informative

Sorry, NASA used Linux.

That article doesn't say anything about what software is running on the Mars Rovers.

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If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Re:This paves the way... by XO · 2007-01-02 06:31 · Score: 2, Informative

The operating systems running on Spirit and Opportunity are based on a flexible commercial platform initially chosen by JPL engineers for its reliability.

"[JPL] needed the tools to be able to develop their mission software on a system from someone with a proven track record," explained Steven Blackman, director of business development for aerospace and defense for the software company Wind River. The Alameda, California-based company developed the VxWorks real-time operating system used in aboard the MER rovers, as well as other NASA and European Space Agency missions.

Either way, not Linux. :D I found two articles that said that they were MIPS R6000, but I'll concede that those may well be wrong.

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"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/

You must submit.... by ezratrumpet · 2007-01-01 10:50 · Score: 5, Funny

No one is safe from the IE7 upgrade. Not even on another planet.

Re:You must submit.... by Jozer99 · 2007-01-01 18:32 · Score: 4, Funny

Rover change log: ----------------- - IE 7.0 update - Better music search function - Improved battery life - Solves "mooing" sound problem - Sony Lion battery bypass - XBox 360 HD-DVD computability - Windows Genuine Advantage - New "Glass" GUI

What's a "year"? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-01-01 10:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

Are they talking about the number of times the Earth has oribted the Sun since the rovers landed, or the number of times Mars orbited the Sun?

dom

Re:What's a "year"? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-01-01 13:12 · Score: 2, Informative

Are they talking about the number of times the Earth has oribted the Sun since the rovers landed, or the number of times Mars orbited the Sun

Well, considering Spirit landed in January 2004, I think you can figure that out for yourself.

Huh? by Swimport · 2007-01-01 10:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why does Nasa refer to this as "revised flight software" these rovers don't fly. Also this should help the rovers move more autonomously and hopefully a little faster. Spirit is averaging 1 MPY (Mile per Year)

Re:Huh? by ColaMan · 2007-01-01 11:06 · Score: 2, Funny

Why does Nasa refer to this as "revised flight software" these rovers don't fly

They're flying right now - in an orbit that matches mars very closely.

--

You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Re:Huh? by cyclone96 · 2007-01-01 11:32 · Score: 4, Informative

Why does Nasa refer to this as "revised flight software" these rovers don't fly

It's just a standard term. At NASA, "flight" software is mission software which executes within a spacecraft computer. "Ground" software usually refers to that which is used for spacecraft control/ground support (the software in the control center on Earth).

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Worst...sig...ever!
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2007-01-01 19:43 · Score: 2, Funny

No, you don't understand. It's "flight" as in "fight or flight". This software detects an attack by the Martians and makes the rovers scurry away into some marshole. Hopefully with the next update they learn to defend themselves too.
Re:Huh? by Zaatxe · 2007-01-02 00:07 · Score: 2, Funny

Why does Nasa refer to this as "revised flight software" these rovers don't fly.

When they install the Roover Control (R) SP2, they will...

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So say we all

Brings to mind... by djupedal · 2007-01-01 11:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

"If it's not broken, boys....."

I guess since the two units are on free time, they figure it is ok to screw them up now.

Re:Brings to mind... by cyclone96 · 2007-01-01 11:45 · Score: 5, Informative

They did everything they intended to accomplish the rovers and more. I'm just surprised they decided to upload the updates to both of them instead of just one of them.

They may have done it that way because it may not possible for their mission support software on the ground to handle two different versions of flight software on Mars.

In any event, NASA's flight software development process is extremely rigorous, up to and including an Independent Verification and Validation center in West Virginia which independently evaluates all NASA flight software (http://www.ivv.nasa.gov/). It's not like it's a beta version of code being sent to the Rovers - the likelihood of finding a bug in the code that escaped testing was sufficiently low to justify uplinking to both rovers.

If anyone wants some light holiday reading, you can check out NASA's software engineering requirements at: http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPR&c =7150&s=2

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Worst...sig...ever!
Re:Brings to mind... by Qbertino · 2007-01-01 12:01 · Score: 5, Informative

I guess since the two units are on free time, they figure it is ok to screw them up now.

As far as I know the On-Board Shuttle Software Group has a track record of 3 (in words: 'three') software bugs in installed operating code within 30 years of writing code. That's all the code running on the Orbiters regular systems, exept only the third-party experiments with own systems and a non-critical original mid-nineties Thinkpad or two they take along ... which - believe it or not - run a version of Windows 95, a frozen setup from back in the nineties, of which the software guys know every bit by it's first name.
To give you a picture of what they have to deal with: A timing mistake in some piece of the shuttles navigation code by one cpu clockcount would put the shuttle 3 miles off course.
The Voyager Software Team reprogrammed a 20 year old device 3-quarters across the solar system to send color pictures instead of black and white - with a system that was only built to picture and send black and white.

You have not the slightest idea what these spacecraft-software guys are capable of and how insanely bulletproof their code is.

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We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Re:Brings to mind... by Teresita · 2007-01-01 12:40 · Score: 2, Funny

Or is this the result of the CYA era, in which the engineers had to promise a certain longevity, and nobody was willing to risk more than a 90 day promise.

That reminds me of when Scotty told LaForge to overshoot his estimates to the Captain by a factor of four to maintain his reputation as a miracle worker.
Re:Brings to mind... by slamb · 2007-01-01 12:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

As far as I know the On-Board Shuttle Software Group has a track record of 3 (in words: 'three') software bugs in installed operating code within 30 years of writing code.

I was much more impressed by that number before the story about avoiding having a shuttle in orbit at New Year's because the software can't handle it. That's been known for years and they haven't dared fix it. Is that counted as one of the three? No? Then they've fixed only three bugs in the last 30 years, and they have more than that, unless you think a serious misdesign is not a bug. If I confused the presence of bugs with having fixes for them, didn't consider a serious misdesign to be a bug, and had barely added a real feature in 30 years (at current head count, 7,800 man-years), I too could claim some ridiculously low bug count.
It also seems to me that the shuttle group's software situation is totally irrelevant to anyone but the shuttle group. Look at this part of the article you mentioned:
Take the upgrade of the software to permit the shuttle to navigate with Global Positioning Satellites, a change that involves just 1.5% of the program, or 6,366 lines of code. The specs for that one change run 2,500 pages, a volume thicker than a phone book. The specs for the current program fill 30 volumes and run 40,000 pages.

That sort of rigidity makes their methodology totally useless for software outside NASA. I occasionally hear people talk about how the Shuttle Group does software right, but for non-life critical systems, the cure is worse than the disease. Give me our full-featured, buggy software over nothing any day. There's got to be a better way.
I suspect it's also useless to the other groups in NASA. Do you actually know that the Mars Rover software was written in this manner?
Re:Brings to mind... by georgewilliamherbert · 2007-01-01 12:58 · Score: 5, Informative

...why didn't anyone expect them to last?

This is a very good question. There's a very good, but not well known answer.

Mars has a lot of dust. Earlier missions got a good dusting on the landers and rover (Viking 1 and 2, Mars Pathfinder and the Sojurner rover). The more modern missions use solar cells for power, which are blocked slowly over time as dust builds up.

Dust accumulation on Mars solar cell arrays was a big problem within the early and mid-1990s Mars research community. Researcher Geoff Landis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Landis) had an experiment on the Sojurner rover with a solar cell with a little movable cover glass on it, to see how much dust accumulated over time. Results from that were a prediction that solar arrays would lose most of their power over say four to six months.

Geoff had another experiment on the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander mission, which was supposed to try using static electricity to remove all the dust off a test cell, but the mission was cancelled after the Mars Polar Lander / Mars Climate Orbiter losses.

The two Mars Exploration Rovers were the next landers we sent. The expectation was that they'd last at least 3 months (90 days), and the hope was that nothing else would wear out until the solar arrays were too obscured for them to be able to power up properly anymore, perhaps six months or so into the mission.

What actually happened is one of those unexpected bonuses that the universe throws at you at random intervals. It turns out that the Mars winds at the height of the MER solar panels are just enough stronger than they are closer to the ground that the MER solar panels built up a moderate load of dust and stabilized there. There's plenty enough power remaining (except for mid-winter on Mars) for the rovers to keep operating, and it looks like the whole solar array dust problem just goes away if you put the arrays up off the ground.

There were some people who hoped that the arrays would be kept clean by the winds, but the best models we had before the MER rovers landed was that the winds weren't nearly strong enough. Pleasant suprise, and one that makes future missions a lot easier than we'd been afraid they were going to be. But not something which was taken into account in the MER designs to start with.

There was no expectation that the arrays would last more than about six months; designing anything else to last much longer than that, other than for safety's sake to make sure that nothing else failed before the solar cells dusted up, didn't seem to make any sense beforehand.

The next two Mars rovers are going to be powered by radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) anyways, so that they can keep driving at night and in wintertime, now that we know that the basic MER design mechanisms will last for many years on the surface. Being able to turn on some headlights and keep driving at night should triple their effectiveness or better.
Re:Brings to mind... by cyclone96 · 2007-01-01 14:17 · Score: 4, Informative

That's been known for years and they haven't dared fix it.

In all fairness that's a software requirement (or lack of one) that the shuttle flight software group does not have control of. As has been rehashed several times on slashdot, the shuttle program early on took the savings from not building that capability into the ground and flight software (it's not quite as simple as it seems). It only became a problem recently when it restricted certain launch windows, and now the shuttle program is paying to add it in.

That sort of rigidity makes their methodology totally useless for software outside NASA.

As you say, it's totally useless for non-life critical systems. However, outside of NASA I know of DOD applications such ballistic missile guidance are equally as rigid.

Give me our full-featured, buggy software over nothing any day

As someone who has depended on NASA flight software, I'd rather sacrifice features for bug free code. That's a basic difference between consumer software and mission critical software.

I suspect it's also useless to the other groups in NASA. Do you actually know that the Mars Rover software was written in this manner?

No other group at NASA writes flight software like this, because Shuttle is the only man rated launch vehicle. Orion will be similar (and it's software is being written by the same people). Other flight software at NASA is not this extreme, but there is a NASA software development standard for all flight software and it's still pretty rigid compared to consumer software.

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Re:Brings to mind... by djupedal · 2007-01-01 15:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

1.) What does the 25+ year old orbiter have to do with a pair of terrain crawlers on Mars, specifically (rhetorically)? And what does flight software have to do with them now, please explain, thanks.

2.) "You have not the slightest idea what these spacecraft-software guys are capable of and how insanely bulletproof their code is."
You simplify things to no end, I see...sorry for that. Let's start, and end, with the failure to convert from standard to metric that caused that one Mars surface mission fail, shall we? Opps. The best software in the galaxy means nothing if the overall effort isn't done right, so please don't worry that someone may have made fun of just the code :) Funny tho, that all the software people got so easily rankled over a hint that there may be issues there - if there is no worry, why so much diatribe towards software's defense :) A bit of thin skin for some reason, eh? And please try to also understand, it was a joke...laugh...it's funny.

I'm not talking about JUST the software... I am talking about the overall logic of the tasked individuals and their efforts that lead to decisions such as this one, which in this case, happened to involve software specifically, but certainly not only. The original live time for these two rovers was 90 days - after that, new ideas are on the table...that's why it is called 'free' time, because it is all 'extra' time that was never planned for and now begs to be utilized.

As good a thing as that is, someone, sooner or later, is going to ask the question why didn't they know this? And for anyone that shouts "This is Mars! anything can happen!", yes, of course...but why did the original plan not include at least some options for extended runs then, instead of working them now as if the two units were a sandbox, that's all I'm saying.
Re:Brings to mind... by Tmack · 2007-01-01 18:00 · Score: 2, Informative

I wonder if a vertical solar panel wouldn't have been a better design, one that employed gravity to prevent the dust from settling.
It would probably reduce some of the dust, but would be much less efficient due to its orientation. You want the cells aimed at the sun for best collection, otherwise each 1M^2 of panel will only collect tan(angle of cells to the angle of the suns rays)*length*width, which at high-noon with the sun directly overhead, would be 0. A mechanism to rotate the cells would add complexity, weight, and another critical failure point. Without a good anti-static coating that doesnt reduce ffeciency by blocking light (which they might already have in use on the current rovers) I would bet static charges from mars's winds would also cause dust to accumulate, even when vertical. Then again, the rover would probably also run the risk of flipping over due to its new sail, or they could use it AS a sail too, to push the rover's like a sail car...hmmm
Tm

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Re:Brings to mind... by Tmack · 2007-01-02 05:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

1. I thought that the super low air density makes it really hard for dust particles to move.
1b. hence, they cannot get off the ground very high, but the air should be more dense at the lower 1 foot.
1foot in altitude will not change the air density significantly, and the martian dust storms can and will throw dust extremely high up in the atmosphere. Density might not be high, but velocity makes up for that. This is evidenced in that dust still collects on the rovers, its just that their panels are higher off the ground than previous landers, which allowed the winds that are faster that high off the ground to blow the dust off their panels. Basically the height of the rovers exceeds the boundary condition for the flow of the wind on the surface.

2. Vertical solar panels can just use a mirror to reflect the above sunlight 45deg towards the panels, also add more mirrors and enhance the power.

Mirrors=more weight, complexity, and another place for dust to collect since they would be more horizontal, and again, you would still need something to move them to track the sun.
Tm

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Mars rover OS... by msauve · 2007-01-01 11:01 · Score: 4, Informative

is VXWorks, from Wind River ( http://www.windriver.com/ ). It's a *nix-like real-time OS.

--
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law

Re:Mars rover OS... by Teresita · 2007-01-01 11:08 · Score: 3, Funny

is VXWorks, from Wind River ( http://www.windriver.com/ [windriver.com] ). It's a *nix-like real-time OS.

And as soon as SCO beats IBM, Novell, and AutoZone like bongo drums in court they're going after NASA. "All Your UNIX Are Belong To Us."
Re:Mars rover OS... by PeeAitchPee · 2007-01-01 11:25 · Score: 2, Funny

Ahhh . . . that explains the little tire tracks that start and end at my Linksys router. ;-)

upgrading firmware over wireless? by spotter · 2007-01-01 11:05 · Score: 4, Funny

Doesn't NASA know that this is a big no no? They are most definitely voiding their warranty by attempting this

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2007-01-01 11:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Obligatory comment by pdbaby · 2007-01-01 11:08 · Score: 3, Informative

Which OS does it run?

While I know you're making a joke, other people might be interested - they run VxWorks and the flight control software is written in Java. NASA are pretty fond of VxWorks - it pops up in lots of their projects

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Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"

New capabilities? by cojsl · 2007-01-01 11:14 · Score: 2, Funny

Battlebots!

A little too smart by edwardpickman · 2007-01-01 11:14 · Score: 4, Funny

Unfortunately the rover's first action was to declare Mars free and demand equal rights. Maybe including new AI protocols was a bad idea after all.

Re:A little too smart by Tablizer · 2007-01-01 17:27 · Score: 2, Funny

Unfortunately the rover's first action was to declare Mars free and demand equal rights. Maybe including new AI protocols was a bad idea after all.

Actually they were a bit more aggressive, saying, "All Your Base Are Belong To Us."

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Table-ized A.I.

NASA only wants a probe with great skills... by macadamia_harold · 2007-01-01 11:17 · Score: 3, Funny

Opportunity on Jan. 24. In addition to their continuing scientific observations, they are now testing four new skills included in revised flight software uploaded to their onboard computers.

Nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills, and I'm pretty sure it can also catch a delicious bass...

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Push Button, Receive Bacon

possibly the most most successful mission ever by wallet55 · 2007-01-01 11:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is another milestone in what may turn out to be the most successful space mission ever. After they pulled off two landings, and perhaps right after they they revived one of the rovers from a perpetual reboot error (the ultimate remote bios fix) and before the dust devils cleaned their solar panels, before they unstuck one from a sand dune, and even before the 3 month mission went 3 YEARS, these rovers are showing everyone who is paying attention that the information age driven robotic exploration, moving forward at moores law speed, is the obvious choice over still stuck in the 60's manned space exploration.

Re:possibly the most most successful mission ever by ScrewMaster · 2007-01-01 11:33 · Score: 2

That may be true ... but I'm still waiting for the first Lunar tour group.

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The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Re:possibly the most most successful mission ever by Jugalator · 2007-01-01 12:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

I still have a hard time getting over the quality of their photos...

Just one picture I cropped from one of their ridiculously large ~3000x4000 pixel photos for display on a 24" Widescreen LCD. :-)

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!

Re:Unfortunately, by ScrewMaster · 2007-01-01 11:35 · Score: 2, Funny

Yeah, but they can play "Home on the Range" in Dolby 7.1 now.

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The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.

Re:Obligatory comment by jimktrains · 2007-01-01 12:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Any one know why they picked Java and not ADA, C(?), or another language? Nothing against Java, it just wasn't my impression that it was used for any NASA stuff. Is it more extensivly used than jsut the MER's?

BTW, is the VM open source? (:-p)

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"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette

Re:But when... by EsJay · 2007-01-01 12:09 · Score: 2, Informative

There was a microphone on the Mars Polar Lander, but it was lost with the failed ship.

The Planetary Society successfully extracted audio from the Huygens probe to Saturn's moon Titan.

Cheating! by Jugalator · 2007-01-01 12:33 · Score: 2, Funny

Here they were progressing well on improving their Mining skills while grinding along on various digging quests, and NASA just steps in to HACK them and boost their abilities?!

I can tell you Blizzard wouldn't approve of this!

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!

What's their power status? by Jugalator · 2007-01-01 12:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

Do anyone know of their power status?

Do Martian dust at all collect on their panels or are e.g. winds / dust devils regularly wiping that off completely so it's simply no issue?

I heard about some wheel problem on one of the rovers; is there any other special serious problems they're at all seeing at this point?

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!

Forward error correction by tepples · 2007-01-01 12:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

You made what appears to be an attempt at a joke:

Checksum error, this file is corrupt. Please try downloading it again.

Preventing checksum failure in high-latency communication isn't rocket science. You'd be surprised how many errors you can paper over by sending 50 percent more data.

Re:Forward error correction by StarfishOne · 2007-01-01 12:57 · Score: 2, Funny

Actually I'm talking about disks, following the parent (do they also count as high-latency communication?!?).

Have you ever tried installing an OS/program/game from something in the order of ten 3.5" disks?

I can't even recall the number of times I was stuck with some checksum error near the end while unpacking stuff. Glad we have USB sticks now!

No joke either, many wasted hours if added over the last two decades. =/

Re:Obligatory comment by pdbaby · 2007-01-01 12:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

Nothing against Java, it just wasn't my impression that it was used for any NASA stuff

Apparently they have quite a lot of Java software for their client-side apps too. It's an interesting sort of history: they seem to have inspired Gosling to a degree, and they mainly chose Java because of platform agnosticism (I'm guessing they run a lot of different processors on their missions). I'm guessing the safety of Java compared to C is also handy.

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Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"

Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2007-01-01 12:46 · Score: 3, Funny

When I was still employed by the University of [Censored...the largest uni in New Zealand] I was called out to investigate a network problem at an off-campus site. Long-story-short I discovered that two Indian-born "techs" were trying to install the 272MB SP2 file on the site's hundreds of PCs via a 2Mb WiFi link all at the same time.

I attempted to explain to them that it was also the cause of most of the PCs now being frozen, something they were scratching their heads about, but they wouldn't listen, so I informed my boss and the site administrator then went to lunch. That was four years ago, and myself and all the other non-Indian, non-South African, non-work-for-peanuts techs were "let go" sometime later, but I bet those two guys are probably still on-site waiting for the install to finish.

Re:Obligatory comment by Digicrat · 2007-01-01 12:50 · Score: 2, Interesting

From what I've seen, it probably has more to do with individual programmer's preference than anything else in deciding which languages to use. Java probably has a high popularity in ground-side software due to the ease with which you can quickly develop a user-interface for the system, which given the number of developers on any space mission is required quite often.

Re:The command was by akeyes · 2007-01-01 12:54 · Score: 2, Funny

apt-get install mars-rover

I'm assuming that was done before launching it, now they just have to upgrade sources.list and then run:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

the most intense firmware upgrade ever.. by steak · 2007-01-01 13:38 · Score: 2, Funny

at least if something went wrong some guy at nasa could tell his grand kids that he bricked something from ~140 million miles away.

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lose != loose

Re:the most intense firmware upgrade ever.. by ColaMan · 2007-01-01 15:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

There's already a guy who's done that - the demise of one of the viking landers was because of a firmware update that accidentally overwrote a critical program section.

From my post in the viking 30th anniversary thread.
Funny, all the NASA references these days seem to edit that little bit of info out, and merely say that it was shut off due to impending battery failure. Other sources - and my memory suggest otherwise.

Ah! Here's a reference from the RISKS digest Volume 3, Issue 60 - 1986. (A digest that is still running today, and is a highly insightful window into how technology screwups mess with daily life.)

Ground control lost contact with Viking 1, apparently due to a
software change transmitted to the lander that was accidentally
overlaid upon some mission-critical software already in the lander's
computer. (Bruce Smith, "JPL Tries to Revive Link with Viking 1",
@ux(Aviation Week and Space Technology), April 4, 1983, Volume
118(14), page 16.)

--

You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.

Re:Patching to Mars.. by Cunk · 2007-01-01 14:16 · Score: 5, Funny

I think you meant to say "ping times must be out of this world".

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I am the inventor of the hilarious refrigerator alarm.

Re:The new behaviors by Ignominious+Cow+Herd · 2007-01-01 16:56 · Score: 3, Funny

Yup, Mars is gonna be SPOTLESS now.

Wrong planet. They should've sent them to Jupiter.

--
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.

Welcome to the Intarweb! by maggard · 2007-01-01 17:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

So why is it easier for you to post your question to /. instead of actually looking it up for yourself? It's not like it's gonna be a hard or obscure topic to quickly find answers to...

Are you AOL-time-traveler-from-'97 somehow unaware of nasa.gov, google.com, or wikipedia.org?

Do you so needy of attention you'll shamelessly ask others to spoonfeed your (presumably) adult self?

Or are you just one of those socially challenged boors who has to interject something, anything, into a thread no matter how inane it is?

For those moderating, this isn't a troll, or flamebait, it's pointing out lazy anti-social all-noise/no-signal garbage and hopefully encouraging the poster to reconsider such junk postings in the future.

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I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.

Re:Patching to Mars.. by Shads · 2007-01-02 00:03 · Score: 2, Informative

When i worked for the postal service we had satalite internet connections and they considered "acceptable" ping times (the vsat provider) to be anything less than 5000... which requires a commandline arg to keep windows ping from timing out ;P Those are just satalites around earth, the sats in mars orbit would have astoundingly high pings... I wonder how high exactly.

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Shadus

Re:Obligatory comment by Decaff · 2007-01-02 00:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

The safe memory management is an important issue. But there is another advantage of Java which is that the byte code Java is compiled to (at least as an intermediate stage) is pretty compact, which makes it very suitable for low-memory systems.

Re:Obligatory comment by Digicrat · 2007-01-02 03:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

"I was wondering about this too, but I imagine (and sorely hope!) that they develop any space-related software using formal methods, which would probably discard any idea of development speed"

Speed and convenience aren't necessarily the same thing. Most space-related software is subject to much more thorough processes than this, however when your talking about small development utilities to aid the programmers in managing relatively minor parts of the development process, a quick GUI (or bash script) works well. Remember, not every piece of code written in space-related applications are intended for usage on the actual space-flight hardware or ground control systems, many are just quick utilities to test other components or organize data along the way.

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