
Mars rover is frozen in place following software error - jonbaer
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/305205-mars-rover-is-frozen-in-place-following-software-error
======
Donald
NASA is now reporting the problem as fixed:
[https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-
updates/8589/sols-2653-265...](https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-
updates/8589/sols-2653-2655-attitude-adjustment/)

(Press article at [https://www.space.com/mars-rover-curiosity-attitude-
glitch.h...](https://www.space.com/mars-rover-curiosity-attitude-glitch.html))

------
lisper
A better title would be: Mars rover stops moving because it lost track of its
orientation. This is uncommon, but well within the realm of "normal"
contingencies. And in fact it has already been fixed.

~~~
julianozen
: The Curiosity Story

------
benburleson
Having worked on autonomous robot software, I'm willing to bet this is
software taking the blame for a hardware issue :-)

~~~
mqzkehfbazkebf
Having worked on autonomous robot hardware i beg to differ

~~~
SeekingMeaning
Ah yes, the programmers blame the engineers, and the engineers blame the
programmers

~~~
dvh
When Einstein worked on nuclear bomb the saying was: If he fails French will
say he's American, Americans will say he's German, and Germans will say he's
Jew. If he succeed Germans will say he's German, Americans will say he's
American, and French will say he belongs to the world.

~~~
schoen
His comment was about the theory of relativity rather than the bomb:

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#1910s](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#1910s)

------
1123581321
A developer I know at JPL has been quite stressed about this operation.
Unfortunately I can’t speak to details of the software changes.

~~~
ISL
That is the nature of the job, because the payoff when things work is so
rewarding.

Good luck, Curiosity developers, engineers, and scientists -- we are all
rooting for you.

------
kzzzznot
Would appreciate any technical info from someone who knows more about this,
the article is not targeted to a technical audience.

~~~
Donald
Here is a description of the problem from a UC Davis geobiologist who is using
the rover to study habitability.

[https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-
updates/8587/sols-2649-265...](https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-
updates/8587/sols-2649-2652-curiosity-loses-its-attitude/)

------
mnemonicsloth
> Thanks to Curiosity, we have a better idea of where water existed (and may
> still exist) on Mars, as well as where we might be able to find evidence of
> ancient life.

I don't understand why everyone is so excited about finding life on Mars.

Life on Mars means life may be relatively common on water-bearing planets,
which means the Filter is more likely to ahead of us than behind.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc)

~~~
fnord77
there's no reason the Great Filter couldn't be both ahead and behind us.

\- Life on planets with fossil fuels available advances to an industrial phase
and dies off either from nuclear war or global warming

\- Life on planets without fossil fuels never advances to even the iron age.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
You're right that fossil fuels are contingent. They exist because of a big
evolutionary coincidence that might not be repeated on other worlds.

It's possible, though, that aliens might not need fossil fuels to get to
space. If they had more efficient photosynthesis, for example (ours is <5%
efficient), living plants could have the energy content of gasoline. They
might eat gasoline. All their fuel usage would be carbon neutral (CO2 pulled
out of the atmosphere). They would be way ahead of us.

Or it's possible that we're the most advanced because fossil fuels are
necessary and nobody else got them.

~~~
Brave-Steak
Wait, can you elaborate on that? Cursory glance at google suggests there can
be sufficient other sources of hydrocarbons aside from dinosaurs being wiped
out by a meteor.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Plants evolved lignin well before fungus figured out how to break it down.
That gap in time is when most of our coal was formed.

------
Ididntdothis
This seems to be no big deal. Stuff like this is how learn to do real world
robotics.

~~~
ceejayoz
Sure, but your heart is probably still going to skip a few beats when you
realize a software glitch has halted a $2.5 _billion_ device.

~~~
ISL
Viewed another way, a successful bugfix brings a $2.5B instrument back to
life.

~~~
Ididntdothis
And it demonstrates that the design allowed bug fixes while the rover is on
another planet. I view this as big success for the engineering. They did a
great job. It’s more important to have the ability to fix bugs than avoiding
bugs.

~~~
danimal88
Assuming your bug fix mechanism is bug free...

~~~
Ididntdothis
True. That's where a lot of the quality effort should go. Also keep this part
as simple as possible.

------
Aeolun
Can’t we just send a few humans already? The wouldn’t be able to stay there
for years, but it’d be a few orders of magnitude more efficient.

------
rowanG077
What a shitty title. The entire article doesn't even contain the word
software.

