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Software Upgrade At 655 Million Kilometers
An anonymous reader writes "The Rosetta probe was launched in 2004 with a mission that required incredible planning and precision: land on a comet. After a decade in space, the probe woke from hibernation in January. Now, Rosetta has spotted its target. 'Rosetta is currently around 5 million kilometers from the comet, and at this distance it is still too far away to resolve – its light is seen in less than a pixel and required a series of 60–300 second exposures taken with the wide-angle and narrow-angle camera. The data then traveled 37 minutes through space to reach Earth, with the download taking about an hour per image.' Now it's time to upgrade the probe's software. Since it's currently 655,000,000 kilometers from Earth, the operation needs to be flawless. 'When MIDAS is first powered up, it boots into "kernel mode" – the kernel manages a very robust set of basic operations for communicating with the spacecraft and the ground and for managing the more complex main program. From kernel mode we can upload patches to the main software, verify the current contents, or even load an entirely new version.' The Rosetta blog is continually being updated with progress on the mission, and the Planetary Society has more information as well. The probe will arrive at the comet in August, and will attempt landing in November."
we only pretend we have anything to lose really? http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=real+native+spirit&sm=3 when we really we're losing everything we have no idea we have....
So the probe was running Windows XP?
Just kidding. It is interesting to read about how challenges like these are solved. 35 minutes for the signal to arrive on an interactive session? Wow.
is to load TWRP so the can finally root the damn thing.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Do when the probe was launched it had software defects? I could understand upgrading data but why upgrade good software just for the sake of upgrading? Or is it a "security" upgrade?
So, what the IP address of that thing?
Since it's currently 655,000,000 kilometers from Earth, the operation needs to be flawless
Well, *that* is the real reason why they taught all those students to program on punch cards and have their batch jobs run on Saturday nights with cheap CPU time. It was to prepare those students to program spacecrafts far, far away...
Ezekiel 23:20
Bullshit - or selective memory.
Back in the days, you bought a bunch of floppies, installed the software, and then spent years putting up with a lot of annoying bugs that required buying the next version of the software if you wanted to get rid of them. If they had fixed them, maybe.
Updating is great: if you have a slightly shitty piece of software, you stand a fair chance of getting corrections for free. The only annoying thing is when something that works great stops working great because the developer had a brainwave and decided to come up with Something Even Greater[tm] that turns out to suck. But then, you get that for free too, while before, again, you had to pay for the next version of the software to discover the sucky new feature that replaced the useful one.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
'nuff said, now that your DICE got limp and your TACO dropped.
. . . otherwise, the probe will be filled with a bunch of unwanted McAfee bloatware!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
No wonder the link is so slow, just think of the number of patch Tuesdays that machine has missed.
It will spend a week sending back:
installing update x of 170
do not power off or unplug your machine
it will restart automatically when complete.
The only annoying thing is when something that works great stops working great because the developer had a brainwave and decided to come up with Something Even Greater[tm] that turns out to suck.
Ah! You use Gnome too, I see.
I think he was referring to well written software not crapware
Yes I do! The update process is abused, mostly adding stuff that is a benefit to the products company, like extending the EULA, or adding spyware or AD support. The dubious security fix patches? Why not make a secure product to start with? I can't recall getting anything extra from an update, or at least extra that dident come with some awfull BS in addition. I update as little as possible. And if the update is to fix a massive security hole, then, gone is the software from my system. I absolutely hate this new constant update mentality, and the need for software to phone home regularly. Argggg...
Compared to updating a desktop Windows box while some clueless biddy is clicking away on your installer at random ("Yes! I definitely want the Cryptolocker browser toolbar" "It hasn't done anything for five minutes! Should I unplug it and call great-grandson Justin on his text thingie?" "Yes, let's have Windows Live control my Hotmail").
Well written software that works so well you don't want to update are few and far between. It's not even laziness by the developers, it's just that all pieces of software have flaws, however hard the developers try to produce quality code. That's just the nature of software.
If you have such a piece of software, well... don't update.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Or "my momma went to the doctor and found out that system bloat wasn't just a mole" ware.
Sounds like you made poor choices in the software you were using.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
to publicly state that "We have to flawlessly update this thing from 655km away" until after I already updated it.
Back in the day you took rocks from the ground and food from the trees and that was the last you ever had to deal with it. Why even require an upgrade to bronze or farming in the first place?
Did you actually use that software? Or was it some sort of modern sculpture that you dusted once in a while and showed up to your friends?
Have you never wanted to use firefox, chrome, minecraft, nor play an online game? Hath thou never moved beyond MS-DOS? You update everything, it's just some of those updates are more visible or noteworthy than others. Also, what OS can you run if you don't run anything that has had a huge security hole? GladOS?
This type of failure to employ basic SI prefixes really gets my goat! The metre is an SI unit so multiples should use the correct SI prefix. 1000 kilometres is a megametre and 1000 megametres (or 1 000 000 kilometres) is a gigametre. So the above stated distance of 655,000,000 kilometers from Earth should have been specified as 655 gigametres (or 655 Gm).
I know nothing of these "software upgrades" of which they speak.
Even if the software is flawless, the world it's written for evolves so the requirements change.
This space intentionally left blank
... of Linux on the comet?
Period.
To be fair, many probes have done this type of thing.
The Voyager probes had software updates regularly in their prime, and it frequently made news back in the day. When approaching a planet or interesting object they would upload imaging software, when finished they would upload different sensor programs. About a decade ago (2003?) there were news stories about how they reprogrammed one of the probes to help detect the crossover to deep space.
It is certainly interesting and poses some risk of breaking the probe, but it is standard procedure and something the probes are designed for.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Update completed successfully. Press any key to continue...
Just to be sure, don't forget to check your statement terminators (such as a semi-colon). Getting one of those wrong sent a previous probe into the sun... :-(
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
Years later they retrieve the machine, hook up a KVM. What they see is - Suspected corrupted filesystem. FSCK, Please type in root's password to proceed.
The 'Doh! could be heard across the country.
The end of Windows XP support has far-reaching effects.
Sig expected Real Soon Now.