Mars rover Curiosity’s software upgraded

Post by rzimmerman » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 9:10 PM UTC

aroch wrote: post #3

I get nervous sometimes when flashing ROMs on my phone...And those were downloaded over a (comparatively) 0-latency connection with high throughput. Fact that sending a firmware to Mars is apparently a normal thing now notwithstanding, I find this incredible.

Post by rzimmerman » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 9:14 PM UTC

cypher543 wrote: post #7

fabriceleal wrote: post #6

Possibly cool idea: build a Curiosity emulator/simulator. Build the o.s. for it and/or user-space (does any of those concepts apply? probably not) software for it. Does this already exist? This looks like it. http://sourceforge.net/projects/marsroversim/

Curiosity definitely has an OS (VxWorks). But I asked one of the developers about releasing some code after Curiosity landed and was told that they couldn't. So I doubt an accurate Curiosity emulator will ever be possible unless JPL releases their code 45 years from now like NASA did with Apollo 11's guidance system. ( https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/ )

Post by jbuzbee » Sun, Dec 22, 2013, 11:15 PM UTC

rzimmerman wrote: post #23

cypher543 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiosity definitely has an OS (VxWorks). But I asked one of the developers about releasing some code after Curiosity landed and was told that they couldn't. So I doubt an accurate Curiosity emulator will ever be possible unless JPL releases their code 45 years from now like NASA did with Apollo 11's guidance system. ( https://code.google.com/p/virtualagc/ )

I believe that the software technically falls under certain US export restrictions which is probably one reason it isn't made public.

Post by nknighthb » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 1:25 AM UTC

nickonline wrote: post #24

nknighthb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I just saw a friend's Android phone get bricked by an update about two years ago. It was in a state I probably could have recovered it from if its bootloader were unlocked, but it was beyond reach of Joe User. I've also bricked or seen bricked routers, external HDDs, and TVs in the last five years. Many TVs, actually, if you include pre-release units. As far as I can tell, most of them rely entirely on testing…

> it was beyond reach of Joe User. I would argue that this is not bricking, if it's beyond joe user that's just a job for experts. Bricking to me is totally gone with no hope of recovery.

Post by jotm » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 2:56 AM UTC

nknighthb wrote: post #19

jotm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen an easily brickable device for half a decade now... Android smartphones and tablets are very hard to brick, post-2008 laptops and motherboards have excellent BIOS recovery, what else is there? I bricked an external RAID enclosure by flashing the wrong firmware, but that POS was running on a SiliconImage chip that for some reason allowed flashing a completely different firmware to it...

Funny, I just saw a friend's Android phone get bricked by an update about two years ago. It was in a state I probably could have recovered it from if its bootloader were unlocked, but it was beyond reach of Joe User. I've also bricked or seen bricked routers, external HDDs, and TVs in the last five years. Many TVs, actually, if you include pre-release units. As far as I can tell, most of them rely entirely on testing…