If you think it’s tough to keep your computer or smartphone’s software updated, try keeping a space robot updated from 350 million miles away.
Last Tuesday the team at NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory finished what amounted to a complete overhaul of the Curiosity Rover’s software. Asked why this was necessary, Ben Cichy, Curiosity’s chief software engineer, explains that the software required to help Curiosity land on the surface of Mars and the software it needs to drive around and avoid obstacles is completely different. But as we’ve reported, Curiosity’s hardware is pretty modest. Cichy says it didn’t have enough memory to hold the software for both the landing mission and the surface mission, so the software had to be swapped out remotely after landing.
via Wired
