The Software Behind the Mars Phoenix Lander

chromatic writes "Imagine managing a million lines of code to send over seven hundred pounds of equipment millions of miles through space to land safely on Mars and perform dozens of experiments. You have C, 128 MB of RAM, and very few opportunities to retry if you get it wrong. O'Reilly News interviewed Peter Gluck, project software engineer for NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, about the process of writing software and managing these constraints — and why you're unlikely to see the source code to the project any time soon."

Comments

Re:128MB?

[Anonymous Coward]

/ You seem to be trying to make a joke \
| would you like me to:                |
|  o Help me come up with new jokes    |
|  o Help me bash Bill Gates           |
|  o Help me spell Microdollarsignoft  |
|  o No thanks, let me keep making     |
|     a redundant ass of myself        |
\   P.S.: **** open sores             /
     \
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        \   / __ \
         \  O|  |O|
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--
cpu0: Microsoft Clippium ("GenuineClippy" ChromedMetal-Class). Paperbinding, lockpicking, fish-hook-hack support.
template greedily stolen from this guy: http://slashdot.org/~ClippySay

Nope, its written in C.

[deft]

But you didnt read the article, you were more just hoping for a slashdot linux rally cry or something, werent you.

But if someone crys in a dark basement creepily lit by a monitor, does anyone here it?

Damn, i guess I did.

How hard can it be?

[Dex5791]

Just open the existing code base for the previous lander and cut&paste.

Canadians!

[vimm]

FTFA

We have a team of Canadians... we had to be very careful about our relationship with them... how much we could disclose to them

In soviet canada, mars probe software discloses you?

Re:Great software!

[Durindana]

you mean...

Answers to these questions and more, rendered inaccessible by /.

You know

[geekoid]

if they wrote it in perl, it would only be 1 line.

Re:You know

[MadnessASAP]

Yes, but it would use the unholy letters of the dark lord himself, and bring death and destruction upon any man who gazed upon its ghastly source.

hello.c

[xx_chris]

#include void main() { printf("Hello Mars\n"); }

Re:128MB?

[ron sepun]

Micro$soft?

Good job.

Help me spell Microdollarsignoft == Micro$oft... Fail is you.