Mars rover NASA will get new software – Computerworld

 
 
 In December last year, the engineers found that the computer does not have access to some data, and therefore has been affected by some kind of “amnesia”. They arrived at the same time to the conclusion that the damage can be removed in a conventional way, ie, by updating the computer management software.

There is only one problem, and it is not related at all to the fact that the rover is so far from Earth and sending the radio signals to reach him for a long time. With that scientists tackle long time. The point is that they are not sure whether this part of the software, which is responsible for installing the updates, respond properly sent to the computer command. If it does not, contact the rover may be lost forever, which is why scientists are progressing very carefully.

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For now, wanting to test the procedure to see if in the case of a failed attempt to update a previous version of the software will take back control of the rover, or – what would be the worst scenario – “stops” on for good. If all tests are passed successfully, the researchers plan to try the software update in mid-January.

Problems with the rover began in December 2014, after that, when computer scientists sent a command that the formatting is installed on board flash memory. Because the operation failed, ordered łazikowi enter the mode, which does not provide for co-operation with flash memory. Subsequent attempts to run the module communicates with the flash memory also ended in failure.

Jeep can tell the truth, even without the availability of flash memory, to continue his mission (wandering further on the surface of Mars), but it is then able to perform some tasks, especially when it’s in a state of “sleep” during the Martian night. Normally, no constant power supply by solar panels that are in shadow, does not prevent transmitting the data already collected on Earth, because they were stored in non-volatile flash memory.

In the absence of this memory, the data collected during the day Martian rover is forced to be stored in RAM. But this is obviously volatile memory and after cutting off the power of the data is not lost. If scientists were able to return to work in flash memory, the rover would transmit to Earth data collected during the day even during the Martian night.