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A comment on Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1st Drive .

Re:Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1s... by mkoryak on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @12:48PM (#4386827)
I initially thought that the upgrade was needed because they released a new version as the rover was en-route to mars. That would make sense, but the article says that the upgrade was made to switch the rover from landing mode to driving mode. Why wouldn't they just send a 256mb flash drive along with that 2M pixel camera to upgrade the rover when it got there?
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Re:Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1s... by jessriedel on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @01:04PM (#4386914)
According to jgrahamc, it sounds like they driving software was finished en route and actually was uploaded to curiosity before it landed. Apparently, the past few days have been spent installing the software rather than downloading it from Earth.
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Re:Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1s... by sausagefeet on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @01:03PM (#4386910)
My guess is weight + money. Not sure how much a space hardened flash costs. On top of that could be complexity costs.
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Re:Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1s... by ralfd on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @03:17PM (#4387676)
Not quite. The reason is that the specs of the mission were frozen 2004.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/08/08/Curiosity-interview-...

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Re:Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1s... by spydertennis on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @12:54PM (#4386849)
I think the driving mode wasn't finished by the time the rover was sent.
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Re:Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1s... by glhaynes on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @02:00PM (#4387222)
I wonder if that was according to the original plan…
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Re:Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1s... by spydertennis on Wednesday August 15, 2012 @02:09PM (#4387287)
I doubt much of what actually happened was according to the original plan :)
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