Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly

Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by zadler on Friday May 28, 2021 @03:25AM (#27312626)

I don’t think the article mentions whether or not they can update the code remotely. Can they patch it?

Edit: appears so: https://astronomynow.com/2021/04/11/nasa-delays-mars-helicop...

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by ArnoVW on Friday May 28, 2021 @04:32AM (#27313023)

OTA updates of the software are a hard requirement if your equipment is at 30 light minutes.

Actually, I remember reading somewhere that more and more they use FPGA chips, allowing to even "change out the CPU" if needed.

http://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Techno...

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by j4mie on Friday May 28, 2021 @05:06AM (#27313207)

Is it still called OTA if there isn't any air?

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by codeulike on Friday May 28, 2021 @05:20AM (#27313276)

I think it can justifiably have a grander name than OTA.

Lets call it an "OPA" - Other Planet Update

Or perhaps "USTLLTFMMA" (updating software thats literally like thirty fucking million miles away)

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by NAG3LT on Friday May 28, 2021 @08:47AM (#27314742)

As if Squats and Dusters would ever accept OPA

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by sunizzle on Friday May 28, 2021 @09:11AM (#27314925)

Underrated comment. #expanse

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by 8bitsrule on Saturday May 29, 2021 @02:12AM (#27323395)

OPA Gangnam Style

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by wereHamster on Friday May 28, 2021 @05:11AM (#27313237)

There is air for the fist and last few dozens of kilometers (at varying density)

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by TchoBeer on Friday May 28, 2021 @11:25AM (#27316505)

There's very clearly air, seeing as the helicopter is flying.

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by samsari on Friday May 28, 2021 @05:13AM (#27313252)

Over the Aether?

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by hvidgaard on Friday May 28, 2021 @06:33AM (#27313740)

That isn't there either.

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by jk7tarYZAQNpTQa on Friday May 28, 2021 @11:24AM (#27316484)

"The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories#Quantum_vacuum

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by hvidgaard on Monday May 31, 2021 @04:53AM (#27341830)

I am aware of the theory of quantum vacuum, but I generally take Aether to mean the old proposal as the medium light waves travel through. It has been refuted.

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by snypher on Friday May 28, 2021 @12:29PM (#27317402)

Over-the-antenna maybe, easier than a JTAG cable.

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by Trufa on Friday May 28, 2021 @08:38AM (#27314655)

Air doesn't have a strict definition right?

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by wazoox on Friday May 28, 2021 @05:29AM (#27313317)

They were patching the Voyager probes in-flight more than 40 years ago :)

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by imhoguy on Friday May 28, 2021 @04:57AM (#27313166)

I pray it won't go dead after software flashing like my new laptop with a recent BIOS update ;)

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by jve on Friday May 28, 2021 @09:34AM (#27315130)

Don't throw your laptop out, yet. Flash it directly. Well, depends on the laptop/chip ofcourse, but do your research: https://youtu.be/Gdehz26lYWM?t=173

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by ethbr0 on Friday May 28, 2021 @08:56AM (#27314814)

When you've got redundant memory, you can do a lot safer flashes.

Sacrifice redundance, to maintain rollback capability, and flash one bank. Power on, test, and if test fails, restore to previous configuration.

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by ilogik on Friday May 28, 2021 @04:39AM (#27313059)

it's running linux. apt-get update :)

(not sure what distro they're running)

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by nemoniac on Friday May 28, 2021 @04:47AM (#27313096)

It runs Fprime

https://nasa.github.io/fprime/

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by fnord77 on Friday May 28, 2021 @07:45AM (#27314192)

they implemented their own message queue?

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by crashbunny on Friday May 28, 2021 @04:53AM (#27313136)

this jogged my memory of an episode of linux unplugged podcast many months ago. https://linuxunplugged.com/396

"Tim Canham, the Mars Helicopter Operations Lead, shares Linux’s origins at JPL and how it ended up running on multiple boxes on Mars.

Plus the challenges Linux still faces before its ready for mission-critical space exploration."

edit: just saw someone already mentioned the podcast in this thread

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Re:Mars Helicopter Lands Safely After Serious In-Flight Anomaly by TchoBeer on Friday May 28, 2021 @11:28AM (#27316539)

>Plus the challenges Linux still faces before its ready for mission-critical space exploration

Can I get a tl;dr on this

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