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Old 21-03-2019, 09:40 AM
gary
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Thumbs up NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Is Put to the Test

In a 19 March 2019 press release by JPL/NASA, engineers and technicians
have been running system's tests on the Mars 2020 Rover at the
High Bay 1 cleanroom in JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility in Pasadena.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JPL/NASA
"It was our first chance to exercise the flight software we will fly on 2020 with the actual spacecraft components that will be heading to Mars - and make sure they not only operate as expected, but also interact with each other as expected."

The heritage for Mars 2020's software goes back to the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) and the Curiosity rover that has been exploring Mars' Gale Crater since 2012. But 2020 is a different mission with a different rover, a different set of science instruments and a different destination on Mars. Its software has to be tailored accordingly.

Work began in earnest on the flight software in 2013. It was coded, recoded, analyzed and tested on computer workstations and laptops. Later, the flight software matriculated to spacecraft testbeds where it was exposed to computers, sensors and other electronic components customized to imitate the flight hardware that will launch with the mission in 2020.

"Virtual workstations and testbeds are an important part of the process," said Bottom. "But the tens of thousands of individual components that make up the electronics of this mission are not all going to act, or react, exactly like a testbed. Seeing the flight software and the actual flight hardware working together is the best way to build confidence in our processes. Test like you fly."
Story, photos here :-
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7352
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Old 21-03-2019, 10:00 AM
glend (Glen)
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Thanks Gary for that link story. They seem to be pretty far along in system testing now. I guess with all the experience and accumulated knowledge on getting rovers down to the surface and operating for long periods of time, they have it worked out well. Each rover seems to evolve out of the code for the one before.
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Old 21-03-2019, 10:54 AM
gary
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Quote:
Originally Posted by glend View Post
Thanks Gary for that link story. They seem to be pretty far along in system testing now. I guess with all the experience and accumulated knowledge on getting rovers down to the surface and operating for long periods of time, they have it worked out well. Each rover seems to evolve out of the code for the one before.
Thanks Glen,

What is also tricky is that the compute hardware they run on is very
modest in performance compared to the average desktop computer,
but it has been evolving as well.

For example, the Mars 2020 rover is equipped with a 200MHz Power PC
which is 10 times the speed of the CPU's in Spirit and Opportunity's computers.

Mars 2020's 2GB of FLASH is eight times that of Spirit or Opportunity.

Mars 2020's computer has only 256MB of DRAM.

Years ago, my former boss, who was a world leading expert in
semiconductor materials, told me an anecdote of when he was once
chairing a NATO technical briefing.

A Soviet pilot had just defected and landed his MiG-25 Foxbat in Japan.

The West was eager to forensically examine its technology to gain
some appraisal as to Soviet capabilities.

When my former boss briefed the audience with the finding that
the MiG-25 had vacuum tube valves in its electronics, he said the audience laughed.

... until he pointed out that the valves meant that it was highly radiation
hardened, giving the ability for the aircraft to potentially keep flying
through heavy radioactive fallout.

He said there was then a stunned considered silence.

For the same reason satellites and spacecraft typically have modest
performance computing hardware but they are fabricated to be
radiation-hardened.

Mars 2020 Rover CPU specs :-
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/rover/brains/
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