
Mars Rover Curiosity Has First Big Malfunction - Lightning
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/03/130301-mars-rover-curiosity-malfunction-science-space-nasa-jpl/
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gnosis
This reminds me of the story of when Lisp was still used at JPL.[1]

 _"Debugging a program running on a $100M piece of hardware that is 100
million miles away is an interesting experience. Having a read-eval-print loop
running on the spacecraft proved invaluable in finding and fixing the
problem."_

[1] - <http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html>

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cynwoody
Must have been slow work.

    
    
         >  (+ 2 2)
        ... Wait 18 minutes ...
        => 4

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lutusp
The article frustratingly doesn't say whether this is a simple and correctable
RAM one-bit error, or a permanent defect in a storage device. It's possible
they don't know yet, but ideally, the A computer can be brought back to full
functionality and serve as a backup to computer B.

The real irony will be if the defect was created by a stray neutron
originating in its own radioisotope power supply.

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lucaspiller
I'd guess they don't know. Even on the press release they only refer to it as
"a glitch in flash memory" [0].

[0] <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20130228.html>

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mturmon
I think you're right.

In general, single-event upsets (SEUs), which are a single change to usually a
handful of bits, from a cosmic ray, are far more common than permanent damage.

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richeyrw
I know this isn't curiosity, but it remains the greatest commentary on the
Mars Rover program yet.

<http://xkcd.com/695/>

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Cushman
It's endearing, but I've always found that a bit facile. The idea that even a
self-aware rover would want to go back to Earth is blasé anthropomorphism. The
rovers weren't created to live in our gravity, or our atmosphere, or our
ecosystem; they were created to live on Mars.

I find it more touching to think that we _sent_ them home.

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tomjen3
Sure it is anthropomorphism. That is just one of the ways in which a bunch of
loser tree-monkeys make sense of a world in which they can send a robot to a
different planet.

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hahainternet
Cynical, but ultimately as accurate as you can be.

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noselasd
Real developers gets to blame malfunctions on cosmic rays.

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jlgaddis
"Solar flares." --BOFH

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kabdib
I recommend reading Henry S. F. Cooper's _The Evening Star_, about the
Magellan probe used to RADAR map Venus. They diagnosed bad RAM and a race
condition in the OS that was causing it "safe" the orbiter. It's a good
narrative.

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raverbashing
"failed to turn off and enter sleep mode"

Oh no! Not this ACPI crap again!

(just kidding)

Yes, it can be cosmic rays, or maybe just a task that didn't exit properly

One thing I find different about Mars Curiosity is how results are slow to
come. In other Mars missions it seemed they would expedite the experiments
(but of course, other robots had a much shorter 'due date')

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bromagosa
I wonder what OS are these computers running... the article doesn't give much
technical insight

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fus
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VxWorks> Notable uses: The Mars Science
Laboratory (also known as the Curiosity rover)[18]

Related:
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/159637/what-i...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/159637/what-
is-the-mars-curiosity-rovers-software-built-in)

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mtgx
It will probably have its last one next year when the comet hits Mars.

