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Upgrading Software From 350 Million Miles Away

Posted by samzenpus on from the distant-support dept.

CWmike writes "Picture doing a remote software upgrade. Now picture doing it when the machine you're upgrading is a robotic rover sitting 350 million miles away, on the surface of Mars. That's what a team of programmers and engineers at NASA are dealing with as they get ready to download a new version of the flight software on the Mars rover Curiosity, which landed safely on the Red Planet earlier this week. 'We need to take a whole series of steps to make that software active. You have to imagine that if something goes wrong with this, it could be the last time you hear from the rover,' said Steve Scandore, a senior flight software engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 'It has to work,' he told Computerworld. 'You don't' want to be known as the guy doing the last activity on the rover before you lose contact.'"

11 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. Oblig. by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Funny

    So what's their problem? Just tell a sysadmin to fix it.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  2. Re:Failsafe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thank you so much Mr. Wowsers for giving NASA this great idea. I suspect, given the genius of the thought, you will be contacted for employment shortly.

  3. Re:Actually... only 157 million miles away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Forgot something and noticed halfway? Happens to me all the time...

  4. Should have gone with Debian.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    sudo apt-get update mars

  5. Re:Actually... only 157 million miles away by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good news everyone!
    NASA will only have to wait half as long to find out if their software upgrade worked!

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    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  6. Re:Stop Calling Mars "The Red Planet"! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    i spoke to mars and it assured me it wasn't offended

    but it was happy for you to be offended on its behalf

  7. Re:And NASA has made mistakes with this before... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

    99% of brickings are the result of people doing stuff that the manufacturer did not intend for you to do

    In that case, that should happen with deep space probes quite a lot.

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    Ezekiel 23:20
  8. Re:Actually... only 157 million miles away by TenDollarMan · · Score: 3, Funny

    Curiosity made the Mars run in 1.82543347 × 10-5 Parsecs

    --
    I hate my flatmate
  9. Re:And NASA has made mistakes with this before... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    pff worst case scenario : they send him over to mars to jtag the rover by hand...

  10. virus protection by gsgriffin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Probably concerned that their virus software is now out of date after the long journey.

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    jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
  11. Re:And NASA has made mistakes with this before... by DrXym · · Score: 4, Funny

    Similar to some devices here on Earth, the rover should have an automatic revert solution.

    It does. Scientists put a small switch in at the back which you hold down while powering it up and it will reset itself.